Road to First Call
After almost three years of intensive planning, and following the adoption of the Cooperation Programme in September 2015, the first major milestone of the Programme has arrived and we are now ready to receive the first project proposals in this programming period.
One of the major milestones of every programme is the launch of its first call for proposals, being the first widely visible result of several years of hard work in planning, cooperating, setting up structures and elaborating the many documents that lay the foundations for smooth application, evaluation, contracting and implementation processes that are all integral parts of each call for proposals.
Starting from the inception phase of any programme, through its programming exercise, everything leads to the call for proposals, through which the many hours and months of planning finally have a chance to be put to the test and get the confirmation in real, ’live’ projects.
All through the three-year programming period, the experts in charge of the exercise, as well as the members of the Task Force overseeing it were constantly facing the challenge of elaborating a strategy for the development of the Hungary-Croatia cross-border area in a way beneficial to its community with simultaneously envisaging the possible ways of its implementation.
The strategy, elaborated into the Interreg V-A Hungary-Croatia Cooperation Programme 2014-2020, has been evaluated and officially adopted by the European Commission on 7 September 2015, leaving the Programme implementing bodies with the task of achieving the manifold and ambitious programme objectives. The endorsement of the document was followed up with the large Kick off Conference with 300 participants in Čakovec on 10 September 2015.
This was the signal for the two Member States involved in this Cooperation Programme to start with the implementation of the Programme by setting up the structures and providing institutional support. Having taken over most of the institutional set-up from the previous programming period, in that way ensuring a smooth transition phase into the new period, the Programme worked fast on elaborating the documentation to support the implementation of the first Call for Proposals, which was approved by the MC in February 2016 and paved the way for the new phase in the Programme’s lifecycle.
