Within the first competitions of the NEXT Romania-Ukraine cross-border communities development program for the period 2021-2027, 120 projects with a non-refundable value of EUR87 million have been submitted, according to the project’s press service.
The press service of the Romanian Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration told Interfax-Ukraine that the submitted projects include 153 partners from Romania and 158 from Ukraine.
The Interreg NEXT Romania-Ukraine program has a budget of EUR54 million in grant funds, to which the national contribution will be added. Projects that will benefit border communities in Satu Mare, Maramures, Botosani, Suceava and Tulcea counties (Romania), as well as in Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattya, Chernivtsi and Odessa regions (Ukraine) will be eligible for funding.
According to the press service, a call for standard projects (projects with an infrastructure component of at least EUR500,000) was announced in August 2023. EUR12.6 mln allocated for this competition will be used for investments in healthcare and education. Within the framework of the competition 49 projects were submitted, the grant value of which is EUR60 mln.
The Small Projects Competition was launched in September 2023. This competition has a budget of EUR14.5 million, which will be directed to measures on climate change prevention and control, biodiversity conservation, health, education and border management. Seventy-one projects were submitted, with a total value of EUR27 million in grant funds.
According to the press service of the Romanian Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, the most applications – 29 standard and 13 small – were submitted in the direction of ensuring equal access to health care and increasing the sustainability of health care systems, including primary health care, as well as promoting the transition from institutional to family-based care.
The second most popular focus area is educational. 20 standard and 17 small projects were designed to improve equitable access to inclusive and quality education, training and lifelong learning services through the development of accessible infrastructure.
15 small projects focused on improving the protection and conservation of nature, biodiversity and green infrastructure, including in urban areas; 13 small projects focused on disaster risk prevention, strengthening resilience through ecosystem approaches.
Border crossing management was addressed by 13 small projects submitted.
The projects will be subjected to an evaluation and selection procedure in the following period.At this stage, a detailed analysis of the submitted projects is underway and the results of the selection process will be presented tentatively in early summer, with contracts ideally signed by the first quarter of 2025, but “the actual duration of the process will also depend on the quality of the applications submitted and the number of clarifications required”.
All submitted projects will go through two stages of evaluation: eligibility and quality. Applications that pass all these stages will be subject to approval by the Monitoring Committee (a joint structure composed of members from both countries).
Funding will be awarded to projects that best meet the requirements of the Applicant’s Guidelines and that will actually contribute to community development in the border region.
Interreg NEXT, the EU’s cooperation programs with neighboring regions, comprises 184 regions with a population of 260 million people in 33 countries and is located along the EU’s external borders from the northern periphery to the Mediterranean region and from the Atlantic to the Black Sea basin.
Interreg NEXT cooperation programs for the period 2021-2027 include EUR1.1 billion from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) and the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA).
CLIMATE CHANGE, cross-border communities, EDUCATION, HEALTH, Interreg NEXT
