Representatives of Cross-border Cooperation Programmes Met in Sofia

Bulgaria brought together the Cross-border Cooperation programme coordinators and experts in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Bulgaria as the managing authority, manages programmes with three different countries within the scope of Programmes. In addition to the coordinators and experts from Türkiye, Serbia and North Macedonia, representatives of the European Commission also attended this technical meeting.

During the meeting, where a general evaluation of the 2014-2020 period was conducted, consultations were held to create synergy between the programmes and common steps to be taken for the newly started 2021-2027 period were planned. It was discussed to transfer the experiences gained from the 2014-2020 period to the new period.In this context, the emphasis was on ensuring active participation of local stakeholders from the programme regions under the "a Europe closer to its citizens" theme of 2021-2027 period of the Bulgaria-Türkiye Cross-border Cooperation Programme, which is one of the common priorities of all three programmes. In addition, opinions were exchanged on the measures to be taken to ensure increased regional contribution during the selection and implementation stages of the projects and to overcome the difficulties that may be encountered during implementation.