Agreement on EU funding for cross-border projects

3 Dec 2020 01:18 PM

On Wednesday, EU institutions reached a provisional agreement on European territorial cooperation and the financing of cross-border projects for 2021-2027.

The total resources available for cross-border cooperation for the period 2021-2027, through the EU Interreg instrument, are set at 8 billion EUR (8 050 000 000 in 2018 prices).

Interreg will support the following types of actions (referred to as “strands”):

• cross-border cooperation between adjacent regions to promote integrated and harmonious regional development between neighbouring land and maritime border regions (Interreg A; 72,2% of total resources);
• transnational cooperation over larger transnational territories or around sea-basins (Interreg B; 18,2%);
• interregional cooperation to reinforce the effectiveness of cohesion policy (Interreg C; 6,1%);
• outermost regions' cooperation to facilitate their integration and harmonious development in their region (Interreg D; 3,5%).

The co-financing rate at each Interreg programme level is set at a maximum of 80% of the funds to be provided by the EU, with up to 85% for outermost regions.

Other key measures agreed

• More resources are expected to be spent on climate action and social programmes, including public health;
• Increased support for small projects and people-to-people projects: up to 20% within an Interreg programme may be allocated to small project funds;
• Pre-financing levels (funds made available to member states following the approval of the Interreg programmes) are set at 1% for the years 2021 and 2022, and at 3% for the years 2023 to 2026, resulting in more liquidity for programmes.

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