Interact is organising technical meeting for Interreg programmes that are dealing with migration-related or other relevant thematic issues to exchange experiences. The Conclusions of General Affair Council of 19 November 2015 states that “Interreg programmes, even though operating with a medium and long-term perspective, may support, where necessary and justified, and in complementarity with other appropriate funding streams, to help respond to migration related challenges within the framework of existing programme priorities and agreed intervention logic.”

Interact, within the scope of its objectives, is supporting Interreg Managing Authorities and other programme bodies in tackling these challenges. To do this a Pilot Action has been proposed and drafted in cooperation with European Commission DG REGIO and ESPON Programme in order to establish a network for “Interreg response to migration-related challenges.”

The objective of the pilot action is to establish an exchange and cooperation network between Interreg, Interreg-IPA CBC and ENI Programmes, implementing a series of activities such as exchange meetings and conference, on-line platform and discussion on how to:

• Make relevant data available.
• Spread knowledge about the current experiences and/or practices of programmes.
• Analyse and facilitate exchange and peer learning about programmes’ migration-related measures and projects, aiming to support the adoption of possible Interreg response and actions in this respect: a specific focus will be made on the question of resilience of the regions concerned, to consider how to help those territories to absorb this kind of external shock and increase their capacity in this respect.
• Elaborate a mapping of programmes and possible measures that could be implemented.
• Define an Action Plan for programmes to implement possible options.

Building on this background, Interact is organising the technical meeting in order to help reaching common understanding of the topic and all related issues and implications for Interreg programmes. The meeting will focus on exchanges on migration-related measures and projects. In order to facilitate discussion and exchange, Interact intends to provide data on migration-related information, collection/analysis of available project data related to migration, based on KEEP, up to the 2007-2013 programming period in order to define a list of programmes that could work on the topic (sharing of experiences and knowledge) and also implement possible measures to tackle these challenges (according to programmes’ selected priorities).

The event is dedicated to Interreg programmes’ staff from the Joint Secretariats, Managing Authorities and other programme bodies whose dealing with migration-related or other relevant thematic issues. The meeting is targeted to all Interreg, Interreg-IPA CBC and ENI Programmes according to their experiences within the topic.

Participants are encouraged to contact Interact if they would propose/identify a topic on the agenda for which they would be willing to share their experience through a presentation.