26 - UTI MUNICIPALITIES

Can UTI (as defined by Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Law 26/2014) municipalities participate individually in the calls for the 2014-2020 Interreg Italy-Croatia CBC Programme?

The possibility for the municipalities – members of an UTI - to submit and/or participate in European funded project proposals, is ruled by art. 26, paragraph 1, L) of LR of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region 26/2014) and should be normally ensured – since 1st July 2016 by the participation of the UTI itself. As a consequence, individual UTI-related municipalities cannot individually submit European funded projects.

The only exception is a differentiated regime provided for in art. 29 of the LR 26/2014 (for the most populated municipality or for the municipality having tourist status members of UTIs with a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants).

In such cases, the existing UTI statutes where such a regime can be envisaged, do not anyway still provide for this possibility for a single municipality to apply singularly. In any case, even if a single UTI statute would be amended, bodies in charge of drafting and submitting a project proposal would be the single “differentiated” Municipality for itself and the UTI for the remaining Municipalities.

Additionally, according to the Central Directorate for Local Autonomies and Coordination of Reforms of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the individual Municipalities members of the UTIs, envisaged by the Territorial Reorganization Plan, may draft and submit projects on European funded programmes, even if they have not yet put in place the required structures, given they have a specific delegation or ratification by the UTI.

The applicant should mention the delegation/ratification in the Application Form, “Section B – Other data” and/or “Section E - Other data” and upload the document in the Section M of the SIU.

In any case Municipalities - that do not participate in the UTI - keep the function in question individually (or, if they consider it in agreement with other municipalities or UTIs), as long as they do not join the UTI.​