MEETINGS 

Meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee (07-09 December 2005 in Norway)

The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee 11th meeting was held in Lillehammer (Norway) on December 7th-9th 2005. M.V. Perov (RF Ministry for Regional Development), O.V. Klimov (Novgorod Oblast Administration) and I.A. Karelina (Leontief Centre) – as Responsible Secretary of the BSR INTERREG III B NP Russian National Sub-Committee – are Steering Committee members. I.A. Karelina presented Russian side on the meeting held on December 7th-9th 2005. Main aim was to select projects – winners of the 8th application round. As the result 28 applications including 25 with Russian participation were approved.

64 applications were submitted to the 8th round and 4 applications were rejected due to technical discrepancy to existing conditions. The RNSC Secretariat in November-December sent to every region of the North-West of Russia (St. Petersburg, Republic of Karelia, Kaliningrad Oblast, Leningrad Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Pskov Oblast, Murmansk Oblast and Novgorod Oblast) – RNSC members – the information about project applications with participating partners from this particular region and asked to make decisions on which projects had to be supported from the side of the Russian National Sub-Committee. As the result following official support letters were received:

 

  1. From St. Petersburg Committee on Transport and Transit Policy (project ¹ 35 Safe and Reliable Transport Chains of Dangerous Goods in the Baltic Sea Region – DaGoB and project ¹ 15 Developing Regions through Spatial Planning and Logistics & ICT Competence - LogOn Baltic)

  2. From St. Petersburg Committee for External Relations and Tourism (project ¹ 35 Safe and Reliable Transport Chains of Dangerous Goods in the Baltic Sea Region – DaGoB, ¹ 15 Developing Regions through Spatial Planning and Logistics & ICT Competence - LogOn Baltic and project ¹ 4 Baltic Palette Knowledge Region - BP KnowReg)

  3. From the Head of Republic of Karelia (project ¹ 8    HINTERLAND potentials for a spatial development under the aspects of decline and project ¹ 26 Human - reindeer interactions. Model for the multi approach land-use planning – Rangifer)

  4. From the Office of Plenipotentiary of the RF President in the North-West Federal Region (project ¹ 46 RESOURCE OPTIMISED SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION IN THE CITY REGIONS OF THE BSR  - RESOURCE)

  5. From the Federal State Educational Institution ‘Kaliningrad State Urban Planning College’ (project ¹ 46 RESOURCE)

  6. From the Public Council on SME under the Governor of St. Petersburg (project ¹ 46 RESOURCE)

The RNSC draft support letter was sent to RNSC members to be approved and after then the letter was signed by RNSC co-chairmen V.V. Petrukhin and O.V. Klimov and directed to the INTERREG III B NP Secretariat on December 2nd, 2005 in accordance with its request.

Sub-committees of other countries-participants sent the same letters.

As the result each project received support from definite countries and this had an important matter during the joint decision-making of Steering Committee concerning projects to be approved.

The situation in the 8th round of project applications was really dramatic: the record number of applications was submitted; requested financing from ERDF funds exceeded available nearly in 3 times (40, 81 MEUR- 16, 81 MEUR) and from Tacis funds – nearly in 2 times (7,26 MEUR- 3,8 MEUR). So a clear, transparent, logical and effective procedure of decision-making had to be developed and applied.

Basing on the results of qualitative expert assessment of project proposals the Secretariat preliminarily assigned each proposal to one of the following four categories:
A high

B satisfactory

C unsatisfactory

D unacceptable

 

Steering Committee members made a decision to exclude from the further discussions projects of D category at the first stage of discussion (unfortunately, 2 projects supported by RNSC were excluded:

  1. ¹ 26 Human - reindeer interactions. Model for the multi approach land-use planning – Rangifer

  2. ¹ 4 Baltic Palette Knowledge Region - BP KnowReg

But RNSC was the only one sub-committee tried to get a positive decision and representatives of other countries-participants of these projects did not support it).

All the projects from A category were approved (among them following projects with Russian participation were approved: 

  1. ¹ 21 Baltic Gateway PLUS: Implementation plan for realizing the Baltic Gateway Quick Start Programme / Baltic Gateway+,

  2. ¹ 54 Baltic Energy Efficiency Network for the Building Stock / BEEN,

  3. ¹ 56 Transnational River Basin Districts on the Eastern Side of the Baltic Sea Network - TRABANT / TRABANT,

  4. ¹ 60 Seagull II: Strengthening institutional structures and spatial development capacities of Euroregion Baltic / Seagull II,

  5. ¹ 61 Baltic Spatial development Measures for Enterprise / B-SME)

Further discussion were undertaken only concerning the projects from B è Ñ categories and initially the B category projects were preferred and only in exceptional and duly justified cases the C category projects were selected. Number of countries supported one or another project had a primary importance. It should be noted that even if only the B category projects were selected the excess of requested funding over available would be significant.

As a result of using of the multiway discussion and selection procedure 28 projects were approved for financing within the limits of available ERDF funds, among them – 25 with Russian participation.

The next step was to determine projects, in which the financing of Tacis component was possible and efficient (requested funding of 25 projects proposals with Russian participation exceeded the available funds on 1,5 MEUR). Initially the projects were ranged in 3 groups (depending on quality and importance of Tacis component for the project at whole).

Finally, it was suggested to approve 19 projects and to include 5 projects into the reserve list with particular ranks on importance. The Tacis component was excluded in the project VBN InnoReg - Strengthening Via Baltica Nordica Macro-Region through Transnational Cooperation for Regional Innovation Promotion

Meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee (02-03 June 2005 in Norway)

The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee 10th meeting was held on the 2nd – 3rd of June in Oslo, Norway. I.A. Karelina, RNSC Responsible Secretary, participated in the meeting. The project applications, which were submitted to the 7th application round for INTERREG financing, were discussed during that meeting. 21 project ideas with Russian participation were submitted and among them10 projects ideas were approved. RNSC members were informed concerning the results of approving procedure of project applications with participation of their regions.

Also in the framework of the meeting the decision concerning next 8th application round was made. It was decided to carry out 8th round on the base of old application forms because financing of Russian participants is impossible now, as Russian side still hasn’t signed the Financial Agreement. At the same time, Byelorussian partners will submit new applications and get Tacis financing. The last 9th round, which will be announced in winter, is the final opportunity for Russian participants to get Tacis financing and it will be possible only if the Financial Agreement would be signed up to December. The 9th round is planned to be very specific: some funds will be reserved for projects aimed at preparation of the New Program.

Meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee (9-10 December 2004 in Hamburg)

The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee 9th meeting took place on the 9th – 10th of December 2004 in Hamburg (Germany).

During this meeting Steering Committee approved 14 projects (from 32 submitted) under Sixth Call for Project Applications of BSR INTERREG IIIB Programme.

Out of 15 submitted projects, with the Russian participation - 9 projects were approved.

Meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee (3-4 June 2004 in Latvia)

The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee meeting will take place on 3-4 June 2004 in Latvia.

Meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee (26-27 January 2004 in Lubeck, Germany)

The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee meeting took place on January 26-27 2004 in Lubeck, Germany

The sixth meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee took place in in Marienhamn, Åland (Finland) on  2-3 June 2003

At its meeting the following Fourth Call projects were approved (under various conditions) by the Steering Committee:

INTRASEA - INland TRAnsports on SEA routes, Swedish Maritime Administration, SE
Barents 2010, The County Administration of Vasterbotten, SE
South Baltic Four Corners, Southeast Skåne Com. of Coop., Carrefour South Sweden, SE
Baltic Balance - Integrated settlement structures, Kalmar County administrative Board, SE
NECL - North East Cargo Link, County Administrative Board of Vasternorrland, SE
New Hansa of sustainable ports and cities, Stadtwerke Lübeck, DE

Out of 9 submitted projects, with the Russian project partners - 3 approved projects.

The fifth (extra) meeting of BSR Interreg IIIB Steering Committee (February 14, 2003, Helsinki, Finland).

The extra meeting of BSR Interreg IIIB Steering Committee was held on February 14, 2003 in Helsinki (Finland), chaired by Mrs. Ulla Koski, Finnish Ministry of Environment. On its meeting the Steering Committee decided:

 

Meeting documents:

The fourth meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee took place in Tallinn, Estonia on December 16-17, 2002  

The Fourth Meeting of the BSR Interreg III B Steering Committee was chaired by Peder Baltzer Nielsen, Danish Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning Department. The following issues were presented at the meeting:

  • The outcome from the INTERREG IIC programme quality evaluation;

  • The results and the report from the second seed money applications call and plans for the third call;

  • Overview of the first and second application and assessment procedure;

  • JS’s proposal on including indicators in the application from as a test in order to further stress the need for clear outcome;

  • The proposal to simplify the definition of the final beneficiaries;

  • The aims and focus for the third Partner Search Forum in Gdansk, Poland, 15-17 June 2003. A specific focus will be discussed at the extra SC meeting in February;

  • Overview statistics of the submitted projects for the second round and the assessment procedure. Out of 37 projects submitted one project did not pass the formal eligibility check. One project withdrew its application. The Joint Secretariat proposed 12 projects that passed the quality assessment. The Russian project partners are indicated in 9 approved projects.

Decisions of the BSR INTERREG Steering Committee made at the Fourth Meeting:  

  • To open the 4th call for project application on 17 February 2003 and close 14 March 2003;

  • Third application round for seed money facility will open 3 February and close 3 March 2003;

  • The extra SC meeting will take place in Helsinki on 14 February 2003, next SC meeting on decision on projects will take place on Åland, 2-3 June 2003.

The third meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee took place in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 28-29, 2002

Projects which passed selection procedure including 10 with Russian Participation 
Resolution No 8/2000 of the Polish VASAB 2010 Committee
Abstract minutes

Press release of the chairman of the BSR Interreg III B Steering Committee,  Danish Ministry of the Environment, Copenhagen, 30 May 2002

 The second meeting of the BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee took place in Göteborg, Sweden on December 16-17, 2001

In total 40 applications (see attached list- -a-projects for further assessment 1 round141101.doc) were submitted to the Joint Secretariat by the deadline on 26 October 2001. One of the applications was withdrawn and after having gone through the first eligibility check 22 project proposals were left for being further assessed and evaluated. These projects were assessed from three different aspects (project/partnership; budget/finances; management/promotion), which were scored by numbers (0, 1, 2, 3) where three is the best and zero is the worst. The scoring has served as a practical working tool to reach the final recommendation for project approval/rejection.  Click here to obtain the results of the assessment of the first round of project applications in the shape of 22 individual assessment sheets of project proposals passing the eligibility check (FINAL.zip).

The first Meetings of the BSR INTERREG IIIB Monitoring and Steering Committees have taken place on September 24-25, 2001 in Rostock, Germany

Recommendations for future BSR INTERREG III B Projects