-We hope that financial questions regaring the programmes in the near future will be agreed upon with colleagues from the EU, top ministry representative Yuri Berestnev said in a recent meeting with the Northwest Russian province administration, Regnum reports.
He especially expressed hope that financial part of the Baltic Sea CBC, the Latvia-Estonia-Russia programme and the Lithuania-Poland-Russia programme will soon find their solution.
Mr. Berestnev, leader of the ministry’s Department of International Relations and Development of Cross-Border Cooperation, in the meeting also said that the assessment criterias for the projects proposed by the regions involved, as well as project result assessment are about to be approved.
As BarentsObserver previously has reported, the failure to sign the financial part of the Baltic Sea CBC by the deadline of 31 December 2008, resulted in a setback in East-West project cooperation in the Baltic Sea region. Russia will have to sign the financial agreement for the remaining six EU-Russia ENPI programmes before 31 December 2009.
The ENPI CBC programmes are among the EU’s main cooperation tools with neighboring countries in Eastern Europe and North Africa. Russia is included in seven of the programmes, among them the Baltic Sea CBC and the Kolarctic programme. Both of the two programmes include more than 20 million EUR in cross-border project money.
Originally, Russia has committed itself to contribute with 111 million EUR to the seven programmes over the period 2007-2013.
