The regional event in relation to cross border co-operation (CBC) at intra-Western Balkan borders took place in Hotel Iberostar in Bečici, Budva Municipality, Montenegro on 20 and 21 June 2013.

This was a follow-up to the meeting held in Brussels on 24 April 2013 where initial discussions were held between the European Commission and representatives of the National Authorities from Western Balkan countries.

The event formally launched the programming exercise for CBC between candidate and potential candidate countries under IPA II (2014-2020) which should culminate in the submission of CBC Programmes at intra-Western Balkan borders to the Commission by 30 November 2013.

The European Commission presented the major relevant features for cross-border cooperation under IPA II: regulatory framework under the new financial instrument and programming requirements. In addition, the Commission presented main lessons learned from CBC under IPA I and launched a discussion on proposed corrective actions for a smoother management and implementation of CBC under IPA II.

In addition, the Beneficiary Countries presented their preliminary views and /or conclusions on the geographical scope of their programmes as well as the thematic priorities they have identified that would prevail in each of the programmes.

Finally, the IPА-funded multi-beneficiary project Cross Border Institution Building “CBIB+” brought the audience up to speed with the state of play regarding the Management Information System (MIS) for the monitoring of the implementation of the CBC programmes, the small scale grant scheme to be implemented under their project, and a training plan based on a stakeholder analysis carried out in the project’s inception phase.