The European Parliament and the Council of the EU have reached an agreement on the regulation on European territorial cooperation (better known as Interreg),after a brief inter-institutional meeting held on Wednesday 2 December, during which they validated higher pre-financing for these programmes after 2020.
Pre-financing levels (see EUROPE 12593/22), i.e. the funding made available to Member States after approval of Interreg programmes to start projects, are set at 1% for the first two years and 3% for the years 2023 to 2026. This is good news for the regions since it will result in greater liquidity at the start of programmes.
In respect of co-financing, the rate is raised to a maximum of 80% of European funds, with special treatment for the outermost regions, however, where co-financing is increased to 85%. In addition, the co-legislators agreed to devote more resources to climate action (about 60% of Interreg A, B and D) as well as social programmes, including funding for public health services.
It should be noted that greater support will be given to small projects and people-to-people projects, which would be up to 20% of the funds for an Interreg programme. Finally, the innovative instrument was transferred to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
With a budget of €8 billion, the regulation will be shared between cross-border cooperation (72.2% of resources, Interreg A), transnational cooperation (18.2%, Interreg B), interregional cooperation (6.1%) and cooperation with the outermost regions (3.5%, Interreg D). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)