Open competition for cross-border cooperation projects of Romania and Serbia – EU set aside 10.4m EUR

The Ministry of Finance of Serbia and the Ministry of Regional Development and Residence of Romania have announced the open competition for the projects of cross-border cooperation between the two countries, for which European Union (EU) set aside 10.4m EUR worth of non-refundable aid. The open competition will be open prior to July 29, 2009.

The aim of the Programme for Cross-border Cooperation between Serbia and Romania, of which realization is financed from the IPA funds of EU, is the economic development of border areas, strengthening of competitiveness of regional economy and improvement of citizens’ living standard.

The value of individual donations for approved projects ranges between 30,000 and 1m EUR. The maximum amount of the donation is 85% of the value of the project that should be implemented within two years.

The draft projects can be submitted by Serbian enterprises and non-profitable organizations from the regions of North Banat, Central Banat, South Banat, Braničevo and Bor, and Romanian companies from the regions of Tamiš, Karaš-Severin and Mehedinci.

Realization of the Programme for Cross-border Cooperation between Serbia and Romania commenced in 2004. Total of 4.7m EUR worth of 53 projects from that Programme had been implemented in Serbia prior to year 2006.

The Assistant to the Minister of Finance, Gordana Lazarević, pointed out that “the realization of the projects from the Programme for Cross-border Cooperation is of exceptional importance because it shows how ready Serbia is to resume European integrations”.

She added that IPA cross-border cooperation programmes represented excellent introduction to future programmes that would be implemented by the rules and procedures of the structural funds.