Brussels, 09/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - the European Commission has adopted a cross-border cross-border cooperation agreement between Greece and Turkey for 2004-06, which will be funded under the Interreg III initiative: Greece will get EUR 35 million from the EU and 11.6 million from the state and local authorities involved ; through Community aid Turkey will get EUR 15 million (through turkey's pre-accession instrument), as well as EUR 4.4 million from the state. The region to be covered accounts for around 17% of the total surface area in Greece and 8% of that in Turkey. 8 million people will affected.
Priorities are: cross border infrastructure: Community contribution of 14 million for Greece and 5.8 for Turkey; economic development and employment: Community contribution of 7 million for Greece and 2.9 for Turkey; quality of life, environment and culture: Community contribution of EUR 12.25 for Greece and 4.3 for Turkey.
Regional Policy Commissioner Michel Barnier said that this initiative represented a stepping stone in the history of relations between the two countries. The Commissioner said that he was convinced that the initiative would have a positive spin-off effect for the people of the regions affected and would strengthen mutual relations.
Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen considered that the programme clearly demonstrated that the two countries wanted closer cooperation and that though initiatives like this one and the cross border cooperation programme recently launched between Turkey and Bulgaria, the EU would create the conditions for preventing new barriers emerging in the South East of Europe during the enlargement process.