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What we fund

What-we-fund-introduction

Introduction

The Interreg is a wide cooperation action set by the European Commission aimed to increase the cooperation and cohesion among the European Countries along with the improvement of all the sectors of the territory and environment, with the support of ERDF (European Regional Development Funds).

As established by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/75, the Interreg VI Italy-Croatia Programme 2021-2027, involves the areas in Italy and Croatia facing the Adriatic Sea and it is at the second programming period: the first cycle 2014-2020 began after Croatia entered in the European Union in 2013 and financed nearly one hundred projects.

The Italy-Croatia cooperation area shows a distinct blue and green pattern, featuring the sea basin, coastal landscapes, green but also urban areas.

The location of the Adriatic Sea in the very centre of the territory – although shared with other Countries – on one hand, requires more efforts to accomplish concrete collaboration related with the cross-border integration of economic, educational and labour markets; on the other hand, it is a joint economic and environmental asset and a natural platform for cooperation building on a long-dating trade exchange contacts reflected in some common traits of the cultural heritage. In order to reach the Programme objectives, Italy Croatia partnership projects will be identified and financed on the basis of their capacity to achieve the Programme objectives.
Applicants will be invited by public calls for proposals and the applications assessed on the basis of selection criteria formally approved by the Programme Monitoring Committee. For the 2021-27 programming period the EU resources of the Programme will amount to EUR 178 million as confirmed by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/74.

To find out more about the Interreg Italy-Croatia 2021-2027 Programme check out animated video.

What we fund - body - Specific Objectives - EU REGULATION 2021-2027

Specific Objectives: EU REGULATION 2021-2027 and PROGRAMME SOs

  EU Regulation SOs / Programme SOs  

1.1 - Innovation and research / SO 1.1
1.4 - Smart Specialization / SO 1.2

2.4 - Climate change adaptation and environmental risk prevention / SO 2.1
2.7 - Protection of biodiversity and reduction of pollution / SO 2.2

3.2 - National, Regional, local and cross border mobility / SO 3.1
 
4.6 - Culture and sustainable tourism / SO 4.1
 
ISO 1 - A better cooperation governance / SO 5.1

What we fund - body - Programme Cycle

Programme Cycle

After the approval by the European Commission (Decision n. C(2022) 5935 on 10th August 2022), the Programme lives different stages.
First of all, the Monitoring Committee must be set up and, supported by the Managing Authority and the Joint Secretariat, it has to decide how and when to organise the launch of the calls for proposals according to what is stated in the Programme itself (namely budget, target groups, objectives, results, etc.).

The schedule of the calls foreseen for the Programme 2021-27 is here available.

The calls for proposals allow the allocation of the EU funds among projects in order to obtain goals in line with the principles of cooperation and cohesion. For each call all the proposals of projects must be assessed by the JS on the basis of the eligibility and quality criteria set by the MC, they are ranked and the top ones are financed according to the available resources. Once the projects are financed and they begin to work, their reference point in the Programme is the Joint Secretariat that acts as a sort of tutor and supports them. The Lead Project Partner collects periodically from the other Partners the progress report that including physical, procedural and financial data and the costs incurred and validated from the First Level Controllers (FLC), then submits it to the JS and, if there are no criticalities, it will be refunded by Managing Authority. 
In the measure of the amount of recognised expenditure refunded for the projects, the Managing Authority sends to the European Commission the application for payment.

A monitoring system (JEMS) is set up and it represents a big archive with all the information, data and activities of the Programme and the projects. It is used for day by day monitoring and to have feedback if the Programme itself is efficient and effective, in case it is not and there are criticalities, the Monitoring Committee can re-programme it with the approval of the European Commission if necessary. 
In addition to all the ongoing evaluations, at the end of the Programme and within the 15th February 2031 the managing Authority has to provide a Final Performance Report in order to verify the goals achieved thanks to the projects.

What we fund - body - Programming Process

Programming Process

The programming process for this new cycle started at the end of 2020 and it ended with the approval of the Programme in August 2022

Programming is a long and complex negotiation process among many actors (not only institutional), who collaborate in drafting the Programme to foster cooperation between Italy and Croatia by promotion an integrated and harmonious regional development.


A Task Force, composed of national and regional authorities of the two Member States, as well as the representatives of the programme partnership, was set up at Programme level in order to lead the programming process.


The process started with the definition of the Territorial Socio-Economic Analysis (TSEA), where strengths and weaknesses of the territory, as well as threats and opportunities, were highlighted.


The analysis was able to identify the list of the main needs of the area and the related challenges that the Programme had to face. The involvement of the Stakeholders for a careful and complete evaluation was essential and, for this purpose, specific consultations had been carried out. On the basis of the TSEA results and the Stakeholders’ consultations feedback, the TF continued to work on with the new Programme, providing subsequent updated versions of it.


Before the final version, the Programme underwent a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA); thereby everyone could participate in the consultation focused on the potential environmental effects of the Programme.


At the end of the process, the TF approved the final draft of the Interreg Programme (IP) and the Managing Authority submitted the document to the European Commission. Then the formal negotiations took place leading, finally, to the approval of the Programme with a decision of the European Commission.


 

The Interreg VI A Italy-Croatia 2021-2027 Programme has been drafted filling in the Interreg Programme (IP) template included in the Interreg Regulation 1059/2021.

The IP template was divided into seven chapters:

  1. Programme strategy (1.1 Programme area; 1.2 Summary of main joint challenges, joint investment needs and complimentary and synergies with other forms of support, lessons-learnt from past experience and MRS; 1.3 Justification for the selection of POs, SOs and the ISOs)
  2. Priorities (2.1.1 Specific Objectives (repeated for each SO); Related types of action and their expected contribution to SOs and to MRS; Indicators; Main target groups; Indication of the specific territories targeted; Planned use of financial instruments; Indicative breakdown by type of intervention)
  3. Financing plan (3.1 Financial appropriations by year; 3.2 Total financial appropriations by fund and national co-financing)
  4. Action taken to involve the relevant programme partners in the preparation of the Interreg programme and the role of those programme partners in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation
  5. Approach to communication and visibility for the Interreg programme
  6. Implementing provisions (6.1 Programme authorities; 6.2 Procedure for setting up the joint secretariat; 6.3 Apportionment of liabilities among participating MSs and where applicable, the third countries and OCTs, in the event of financial corrections imposed by the MA or the EC)
  7. Use of unit costs, lump sums, flat rates and financing not linked to costs.

In order to strongly support the TF on the drafting of the thematic contents of the Programme, two external service providers were selected for the elaboration of the Territorial and Socio Economic Analysis and for the preparation of the first draft of IP thematic chapters.

Territorial and Socio Economic Analysis (TSEA)

The Territorial and Socio-Economical Analysis Report had been elaborated in order to provide the necessary knowledge base for starting the process of drafting the next Italy-Croatia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2021-2027. The core of the document was the SWOT analysis, which summarized the results of the analysis in all domains and presented them under the well-known articulation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Finally, an analysis of the key challenges for the development of the cross-border area was proposed, in which 31 challenges had been extracted from the SWOT and proposed for the future steps of the elaboration of the new Programme.

Territorial and Socio Economic Analysis Report


Thematic Scenarios Starting from the TSEA

Report and further elaborating a multicriteria analysis, the evaluator identified 6 simulated territorial and thematic scenarios, as possible and technically grounded set of choices for the drafting of the new Programme: which intervention, for which territories/target group/sector, pursuing which objectives.

 


Costumized Scenario

Taking into account the Task Force’s inputs, a final customized scenario was elaborated by the evaluator and approved by the Task Force. Its vision could be expressed as follows: “focusing on the blue economy and maritime related challenges, in continuity with the 2014-2020 Programme and in consistency with EUSAIR pillars”.

Together with the scenario 12, related challenges had been identified and the following 6 Specific Objectives had been selected:

  • 1.1 Innovation and research
  • 1.4 Smart specialization
  • 2.4 Climate change adaptation and environmental risk prevention
  • 2.7 Protection of biodiversity and reduction of pollution
  • 3.2 National, Regional, local and cross border mobility
  • 4.6 Culture and sustainable tourism

The Task Force decided to also include the Interreg Specific Objective 1 – Better Cooperation Governance (“ISO 1”) and consider digitalization and circular economy as cross-cutting priorities for tackling all the challenges.


Intervention Logic

The intervention logic was defined by the IP drafter and submitted to the Task Force.

In autumn 2020, Member States’ agreed on the Task Force composition and the first TF meeting was scheduled for December 2nd.

Internal rules of the Task Force (Rules of Procedure – RoP) were defined regarding the composition and chairmanship, the functions, the meetings and working groups organisation, the decision making process and the written procedures.

The Managing Authority and Joint Secretariat of the current Programme supported the Task Force.

2021

11th MEETING – 15th DECEMBER 2021 online

10th MEETING – 11th NOVEMBER 2021 online

9th MEETING – 14th OCTOBER 2021 online

8th Meeting – 14th September 2021 - Online meeting

7th MEETING – 28th JULY 2021 online

6th MEETING – 2nd JULY 2021 online

5th MEETING – 17th JUNE 2021 online

4th MEETING – 18th MAY 2021 online

3rd MEETING – 17th MARCH 2021 online

2nd MEETING – 18th FEBRUARY 2021

 

2020

1st MEETING – 2nd DECEMBER 2020

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTATION

In compliance with Directive 2001/42/EC (SEA Directive), the Managing Authority had implementied a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to assess the likely effects of the  Interreg VI A Italy-Croatia 2021/2027 Programme on the environment.

The Programme elaborated the environmental report, prepared with an external evaluator support and with the participation of the relevant environmental authorities, both Italian and Croatian.

In order to keep the participation simple, a non-technical summary was available, containing the most relevant information. Anyone could take part into the consultation, sending observations and comment to the Managing Authority, both on the environmental report and on the draft of the Interreg Programme. The documents are available hereinafter:

The consultation remained open from the 30th November 2021 until the 14th January 2022


STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT

In order to ensure the involvement of the Programme partnership in accordance with the European Code of Conduct on Partnership (EU Regulation n. 240/2014), the Programme Task Force approved a Plan for the effective involvement and consultation process of the economic and social partners in the programming phase (first meeting of 2nd December 2020).

The Plan established to hold the consultations for the Italy-Croatia 2021-2027 Programming period in two different moments and at two different levels, as described below:

  1. Local consultation: one on the Italian and one on the Croatian territory (for restricted stakeholders lists)
  2. Cross-border consultation: to be launched when a position of the TF on the main policy/specific objectives is made (open to all stakeholders)

CROSS-BORDE INVOLVEMENT

SURVEY

The first step of the second round of consultations consisted in a survey addressed to the wider public - all Programme stakeholders. The survey, launched on 25th September and closed on 8th October 2021, collected all the inputs coming from both the previous local consultation and the TF’s decisions. The main aims of this survey were:

  • to know and collect the stakeholders’ opinion on the priority strategies and Policy and Specific objectives that had been identified by the TF
  • to collect input to define the actions and related target groups that will be implemented through the 2021-2027 Programme.

In total 166 stakeholders participated in the online survey: 94 from Italy and 74 from Croatia.


WEBINAR

The second step of the second round of consultations was conceived as a Cross-border consultation webinar organized online on 21th October 2021 and opened to all Programme stakeholders.

The purpose of the webinar was to describe the 2021-2027 programming & consultation process, providing an overview of the POs and SOs selected by the TF and presenting the Intervention Logic followed to identify the examples of actions, as well as to analyse and discuss togetherwith the stakeholders the answers collected through the on-line survey, with a particular focus on each thematic priority

The engagement of the participants was ensured by means of the live questions & answers and in the form of polls in order to collect suggestions for the fine-tuning of the 2021-2027 Programme, before its submission to the European Commission.

The webinar was attended by 220 participants: 78 stakeholders from Croatia, 141 from Italy and 1 from Albania.

Please find here below all the useful materials from the webinar.

Presentations


VIDEO RECORDING

See video here


REPORT OF RESULTS
The results of the on line questionnaire and the answers of the stakeholders to the polls launched during the webinar, had been extensively analysed by the MA and JS. They were subsequently submitted and discussed with the 2021-2027 Task Force, with a particular focus on the impact on the IP content and its fine-tuning.
In the overall report of the Cross-Border Consultation – Analysis of results it is possible to find a synthesis of all collected inputs and suggestions gathered from all the stakeholders involved, together with accompanying explanations on the modalities for their integration done by the Programme during the IP fine-tuning phase.


 LOCAL CONSULTATION

The first round of consultations started with two webinars organized online for Croatian and Italian stakeholders, on 15th and 16th April 2021, previously consulted via an online survey.

The consultations were organized according to the same shared methodology, but the language was adapted to the needs of the local stakeholders invited by the Programme on behalf of the Task Force 21-27, thus Croatian and Italian were used respectively in order to guarantee the full understanding and acknowledgement of the overall content.

Almost 200 participants joined actively the webinars: 70 stakeholders on the Croatian side and 120 on the Italian side had been engaged in the online webinar.

Poll voting was used to express stakeholder's opinion and provide inputs that have constituted the starting point in better shaping the new Programme 2021-2027, all around Programme's stakeholders needs. Please find out more from the presentations available to all stakeholders and about the results that came out from the live polling here below.

 


15th April 2021

CROATIAN CONSULTATION WEBINAR - PRESENTATIONS

  • Makro područje A – Analiza potreba teritorija Programa na domenama intervencije koje su već obuhvaćene Programom prekogranične suradnje Italija-Hrvatska za razdoblje 2014.-2020
  • Makro područje B – Ciljevi i ključni prioriteti u nacrtu EU propisa za razdoblje 2021.-2027.
  • Makro područje C – Projekti EUSAIR Flagship
  • Makro područje D – Inovacije u postupcima, vrste poziva

 

CROATIAN CONSULTATION WEBINAR - VIDEO

Click here to see the video

 


16th April 2021

ITALIAN CONSULTATION WEBINAR - PRESENTATIONS

  • Macro area A – Analisi dei bisogni del territorio del Programma sui settori di intervento già coperti dal Programma Interreg Italia-Croazia 2014-2020
  • Macro area B – Obiettivi e priorità chiave delle proposte di Regolamento per il periodo 2021-2027
  • Macro area C – Azioni EUSAIR Flagship
  • Macro area D – Innovazione nelle procedure e tipi di bandi

 

ITALIAN CONSULTATION WEBINAR - VIDEO

Click here to see the video


31st May 2021

STAKEHOLDERS' CONSULTATIONS: ANALYSIS & PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

The current document - Stakeholders' Consultations 21- 27 - presents an in-depth analysis and presentation of the stakeholders' needs and inputs received during the live poll organized in occasion of the 2 webinars with Croatian and Italian local stakeholders. It is possible to read the aggregated data results, as well as the entries from the Croatian and Italian stakeholders.

The different colours used in the infographics facilitate the comprehension and data reading.

 

In compliance with Directive 2001/42/EC (the SEA Directive), the Programme should implemented the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), to be conducted to assess the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment.

The Strategic Environmental Assessment was foreseen in parallel with the definition of the Programme’s strategy and main elements. It is an interactive process that provides the Programme drafting teams an external view, guidance and recommendations. Indeed, the SEA provides relevant information to assess the environmental challenges and considerations which ensure that the environmental concerns are appropriately integrated in the decision making and implementation process of the Programme.

The main steps in the SEA process were the following:

1. SCOPING PHASE

The scoping phase aimed to determine the scope and the level of detail of information to be included in the Environmental Report. From the 13th August to the 12th September, the Environmental Authorities of the Programme area were consulted within the scoping process, on the basis of two preliminary documents:

The observations received, collected in the final scoping report, were taken into consideration in the environmental report.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT

The environmental report contained the likely significant effects on the environment of implementing the Programme and reasonable alternatives taking into account the objectives and the geographical scope of the Programme.

 

3. CONSULTATION

The authorities with specific environmental responsibilities and the general public were given an early and effective opportunity to express their opinion on the draft Interreg Programme and the accompanying environmental report.

To this purpose, a public consultation remained open from 30th November 2021 to 14th January 2022.

 

4. CONSULTATION FOLLOW-UP

Inputs which emerged from the SEA consultation were collected in a unique document, available here.

 

5. INFORMATION ON THE DECISION

As required by Art. 55(4) Regulation (UE) No 1303/2013 and defined by the Directive 2001/42/EC, here is published the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Statement.

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