Yesterday, the Commission published its proposals for Cohesion Policy funding post 2020, including the all-important Interreg regulation.  I hope all of you have taken note and are analysing the proposals carefully.

There is good news for land border regions :

• they get a separate component of Interreg, with a strong focus on internal and external land cross-border regions - more foucs, more visibility;
• a specific Interreg objective has been added to address institutional questions, and in particular, the resolution of border obstacles
• simplification measures have been proposed and should help us win over border beneficiaries
• there is a greater role for EGTCs and other cross-border legal bodies
• a separate regulation is proposed to offer a new legal instrument to border stakeholders and Member States, allowing them to resolve legal issues more comprehensively and with legal certainty.

The last item is of a really innovative nature - it builds upon the work of the last 3-years under the leadership of Luxembourg and with strong support from France and from Mission Operationnelle Transfrontaliere.  We in DG REGIO would like to dedicate this draft regulation to the late Camille Gira who unfortunately passed away far too soon and has not had the chance to see his dream come true.

All the documents are here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/regional-development-and-cohesion_en

Happy reading.

Nathalie