The programme INTERACT gathered in Madrid representatives of EGTCs, secretariats of ETC programmes, national authorities and other stakeholders in a seminar about “Interreg for European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation”.

In this meeting, members of the INTERACT secretariat explained the mechanisms of European Territorial Cooperation and gave tips about how to prepare successful projects in INTERREG V. The Committee of the Regions gave an overview of the state of play of the EGTCs. The participants analysed open issues in view of solving them before the publication of the first calls.

Taking stock of the experience

The EGTCs can apply to all the programmes of European Territorial Cooperation. These programmes, formerly known as Interreg, can be cross-border (the old Interreg A), transnational (Interreg B) or interregional (Interreg Europe and URBACT II).

In this edition, none of the Managing Authorities of these programmes will be an EGTC, and only in the case of ESPON there is an EGTC acting as single beneficiary of the programme.

Several EGTCs presented their experience implementing projects of European Territorial Cooperation: Duero-Douro presented the project “Frontera Natural” co-financed by the CBC programme Spain-Portugal. Euro-GO presented the plan to act as intermediate body of an Integrated Territorial Investment in its territory. Via Carpatia presented an operation consisting in co-funding small projects, which helps to generate experience and to build capabilities of the stakeholders in the area. The micro-projects are in line with the concerns expressed by the Committee of the Regions in its opinion on European Territorial Cooperationdrafted by Mr Osvald (PES/CZ).

Territorial gaps, single VAT number and different co-funding rates

The participant pointed out three important issues that can rise when submitting a project. The three of them are related to the fact that the EGTCs have single legal personality, one registered office and one single VAT number, but they operate in two or more countries.

The territories of many of the EGTCs spread totally or partially over the territory of several programmes. Therefore, when an EGTC applies to one call, it must specify that all the actions will be implemented in the territory of the programme. But even if this is clearly explained,  there might be problems when the headquarters of the EGTC are located out of this territory. For this reason it is important to communicate with the secretariat of the programmes before applying to prevent such a problem.

The problem of the location of the headquarters is linked to the single VAT number. In practice, the ETC programmes use online forms and these forms identify the nationality of the headquarters, rejecting the applications when the headquarters of the applicant or the VAT number correspond to a non-eligible country. In practice several EGTCs have opened delegations with independent VAT number in all the countries where they operate, but this should not be necessary. In any case, this new VAT number is also useful to operate in the private market, e.g. contracting mobile phones for the staff.

The fact that an EGTC is a single entity and operates in two or more countries can also lead to confusion in case of different co-funding rates in each of the Member States. What can we do when a project is co-funded at 85% in country A and at 75% in country B? One possible solution would consist in acting according to the rule of the registered office, but this could lead to EGTCs choosing their seat or opening delegations according to the most advantageous rate. Another solution could be to define the co-funding rate according to the territory in which each of the work packages of the project is going to be implemented. This has to be clarified with the respective managing authorities.

Follow-up and next steps

During the workshop, the participants explained positive and negative examples of participation of the EGTCs in the preparation of the Operational Programmes for the current period. In general, it is essential to maintain open channels of communication between the EGTCs and the secretariats of the programmes where they intend to apply. The participants agreed in identifying more open issues and refer them to the secretariat of INTERACT so they can be studied further with the European Commission and the Managing Authorities.

The Committee of the Regions and the Association of European Border Regions will organise another seminar on this topic in Brussels on 12 November.

The Spanish Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations hosted the workshop.