The final text of the Interreg Regulation was agreed on in December 2020 in the trialogue negotiations, including an Article on Small Project Funds (SPF). Some of you have already noticed that in the final version of the Interreg Regulation the article referring to SPF is Article 25, not 24. During this event, we are going to use Article 24 in reference to SPF for the last time.

The term Small Project Fund has been used among Interreg Programmes for many years, but behind the label various implementation models have been developed. Now, for the very first time, a standardised model has been introduced in the Interreg Regulation. Obviously, this increases the legal certainty of the model.

Final provisions of the Article are out – so here's what we should do now:

• let’s brainstorm and exchange ideas on the future implementation of small projects through SPF using your vast, long-standing experience;
• let’s explore the consequences of the Article’s provisions and discuss the potential practical implications and further need for clarification, interpretation and guidance.

We’ve summarised a couple of initial reflections in our Fact Sheet on Article 24 (having updated its contents according to the final version of the Regulation).

Finally, there is another track worth following: as a major outcome of HIT, a harmonized application form for standard projects has been developed. And now we’ve reached the point where we need to decide if it makes sense to continue working on the harmonization of the application form for the SPF. We would also like to discuss implications of the SPF for monitoring systems, based on your experiences in the current period.

Objectives

During the event we will present the final provisions of the Article. The obvious next step is to develop a more detailed approach for its implementation. We want to:

• discuss it with you,
• collect your questions, doubts and concerns,
• jointly search for answers, solutions and common sense,
• collect tricky questions for clarification with COM colleagues at a later stage.

In the last part of the event we want to test the waters by initiating a group interested in the harmonization of the application form for the SPF and small projects.

You can register now for this event by using the registration button at the bottom of this page.

Finally, if you have any questions about the event, you are welcome to contact the Interact staff member whose name appears below.