On 4 December 2007, the European Commission approved INTERACT 2007-13, a European Territorial Cooperation Programme that covers the whole of the European Union, plus Norway and Switzerland. The Programme aims to promote good governance of Community-funded Programmes that fall within the framework of the European Territorial Cooperation Objective and has a total budget of around €40 million. Community investment through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) amounts to some €34 million, which represents approximately % of the total EU investment earmarked for the European Territorial Cooperation Objective under the Cohesion Policy for 2007-13.

Objective

The Programme’s primary objective is to provide assistance to stakeholders that are implementing programmes under the European Territorial Cooperation Objective. INTERACT will offer advice on implementation issues, support the organisation of thematic seminars, and provide good practice examples. It will, therefore, help stakeholders to fully exploit the potential of the EU’s territorial cooperation programmes.

INTERACT will target the institutions and organisations that have been set up around Europe to manage territorial cooperation programmes – especially managing authorities and joint technical secretariats, as well as monitoring committees, national contact points, certifying authorities and audit bodies.

The Programme’s main focus will be to:

• Generate and share knowledge among stakeholders;
• Contribute to improving procedures and tools that will help achieve high-quality programme implementation; and
• Disseminate good governance approaches to interested target groups.

The Operational Programme is structured around the following priorities:

• Priority 1: Service development and delivery will recieve 37,600,000 euros [approximately 94% of total funding]
• Priority 2: Technical assistance will receive 2,400,000 euros [approximately 6% of total funding]

What is INTERACT?

INTERACT is a technical support programme that aims to enhance the implementation and delivery of programmes that fall under the European Territorial Cooperation Objective. Its core mission is to identify, describe and disseminate effective approaches to good governance that are relevant to the management of cross-border, trans-national and interregional cooperation programmes.

Getting institutions from Member States to work together and across different countries is an extremely complex task, one which presents a number of challenges for the management and governance of territorial cooperation programmes. INTERACT should go some way towards addressing issues that hamper the cooperative process.

The programme is being run by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)