The Republic of Moldova for the first time will have access to the Interreg Europe program, whose budget is €130 million. Interreg Europe aims to reduce disparities between European regions by focusing on innovation, sustainability and social inclusion to improve citizens’ lives. Public and government institutions can apply to the program until June 7, 2024.

“Public and government institutions of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine are invited to take part alongside all the European states in a new call of the Interreg Europe program, funded by the European Union. The Interreg Europe program has announced the launch of the third call for proposals, marking a new stage in promoting interregional cooperation and regional development across Europe,” director of the Institute for Development and Expertise of Project (IDEP) Iurie Calestru stated in a press conference hosted by IPN.

According to him, by facilitating the exchange of experience and good practices between regions, the program stimulates the development of innovative solutions in regional policies. “The selected projects will focus on interregional cooperation with the main goal of improving regional development policy instruments. The initial phase of the projects will be dedicated to the exchange and transfer of experience. In the last year, the projects will focus on the monitoring of the results and impact of cooperation,” stated Iurie Calestru.

The IDEP director noted that the budget of €130 million represents up to 40% of the total budget of Interreg Europe. At the same time, the amount for each financing request will vary between €1 million and €2 million. “In the current call for proposals, priority is given to projects in five thematic EU priorities and one non-thematic issue on better governance. These are: “smart”, “green”, “connected”, “social”, “citizens”, “governance”. For further information, including details about the application procedure and the necessary documents, we invite you to visit the official website of the Interreg Europe program,” explained Iurie Calestru.

He reminded that 277 projects were recently submitted within the call for proposals under the Interreg NEXT Romania-Moldova program. For low-value projects, with a total budget of €19 million, a total of 110 applications were submitted for an estimated budget of €35 million. For projects with a total budget of €40 million, 167 projects with a requested budget of €176 million were submitted.

“I urge all the 377 applicants of the Interreg NEXT Romania-Republic of Moldova program, for whom the deadline for applications was February 9, 2024, to consider the possibility of applying to the Interreg Europe program. We believe that we must support the central authorities in the European integration process by establishing interinstitutional partnerships that will boost the absorption rate of EU funds by borrowing the good practices of counterparts from Romania,” said Iurie Calestru.

Note: IPN Agency offers the right of reply to persons who consider themselves targeted in the news made from the statements of the organizers of this press conference, including by facilitating the organization of another press conference under similar conditions.