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

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 172.986.266 EUR 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.

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 support 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 a 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 tanks to the projects.