Deadline: 21 February 2020

Estonia-Russia CBC Programme has launched its 3rd Call for proposals to support the cross border cooperation projects under the Programme Thematic Objective 5 (TO5) “Support to local and regional good governance”.

Cross-border cooperation (CBC) is an integral component of the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), and of EU-Russia co-operation. It aims to promote cooperation across the borders between EU Member States and the countries in the European Neighborhood and the Russian Federation.

Thematic Objectives 

The Programme has three strategic objectives:

• Promote economic and social development in regions on both sides of the common borders;
• Address common challenges in environment, public health, safety and security;
• Promotion of better conditions and modalities for mobility of persons, goods and capital.

The Thematic Objectives (TOs), in turn, aim at supporting specific areas within each strategic objective:

• Business and SME Development
  • Increasing SME development and entrepreneurship by fostering cross- border business contacts and the development of services and products;
  • Increasing SME competitiveness and entrepreneurship by fostering co-operation between public, private and R&D sectors;
  • Improving the business environment through the development of business support measures and infrastructure.
• Promotion of border management and border security, mobility and migration managment
  • Increasing the throughput capacity of existing border crossing points through the development of BCP infrastructure and border management procedures;
  • Increasing the throughput capacity of existing border crossing points by refurbishing and improving border crossing roads and supporting infrastructure.
• Environmental protection, climate change mitigation and adaption
  • Improving the biodiversity of joint natural assests;
  • Improving the quality of shared water assests by reducing their pollution load (including improving wastewater treatment facilities, improving solid (household and industrial) waste management and relevant facilities, and reducing pollution that is caused by the agricultural sector;
  • Increasing awareness of environmental protection and the efficient use of energy resources;
  • Fostering shared action in risk management and a readiness to cope with environmental disasters.
• Support to local and regional good governance
  • Improving co-operation between local and regional authorities and their sub-units;
  • Improving co-operation between local and regional communities.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount of Programme financing allocated for the 3rd Call for proposals is EUR 432 373,32;
• The minimum amount of the grant to the project is EUR 50 000 and the maximum amount of the grant to the project is EUR 100 000;
• Minimal co-financing rate by partners is 10% of their own part of the project budget.

Eligibility Criteria

The following bodies can act as lead beneficiaries and beneficiaries :

• National, regional and local public authorities;
• Associations that are formed by one or more national, regional or local authorities;
• Public equivalent bodies (any legal body that is governed by public or private legal requirements), which have been established for the specific purpose of meeting any needs that are in the general interest, and which do not have an industrial or commercial character, but which do have a legal personality, and are financed by national, regional, or local authorities;
• Other bodies that are governed by public legal acts, or which are subject to management supervision by those bodies, or which have an administrative, managerial or supervisory board more than half of whose members are appointed by national, regional, or local authorities, or by other bodies which are governed by public legal acts (such as, for example, municipal and national enterprises, trade unions, medical institutions, museums, etc);
• Associations that are formed by one or more bodies which are governed by public legal acts as defined under the third bullet point, above;
• NGOs and other non-profit-making bodies;
• Educational organisations (schools, preschool institutions, colleges, institutes, or universities, vocational school);
• Small or medium-sized enterprises (which hereinafter are referred to as ‘SMEs’) (only within TO 1).
• Each project shall involve at least two partners, of whom at least one beneficiary shall be located within the Estonian side of the Programme area and at least one beneficiary shall be located within the Russian Federation side of the Programme.
• Up to a limit of 20% of the EU funding may be used for financing expenditure that is incurred by beneficiaries from adjoining areas.
• Partners from adjoining regions in Latvia and Finland can participate in the Programme in case they can bring added value to the projects and foster existing trilateral cooperation schemes. The involvement of Finland and Latvia will be specified and justified at the project level.
• More prices criteria is stated in the Guidelines for Project Applicants and in Joint Operational Programme of Estonia-Russia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2014-2020.

For more information, visit https://www.estoniarussia.eu/the-3rd-call-for-proposals-is-open/