Second meeting of the Joint Working Group for the preparation of the Bulgaria-Turkey IPA Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2014-2020 was held on 13^th May 2014 in Ankara, Turkey. The meeting was chaired by Ms. Beyza Turan, Director of Financial Cooperation Directorate within the Ministry for European Union Affairs (Republic of Turkey), as representative of the National Authority, and co-chaired by Ms. Dimana Sadonkova, Deputy Director General of Directorate General “Territorial Cooperation Management” within the Ministry for Regional Development (Republic of Bulgaria), as representative of the Managing Authority. Ms. Ann-Jasmin Krabatsch, Programme Manager at the Competence Centre Macro-regions and European Territorial Co-operation within DG Regional and Urban Policy in the European Commission also attended the meeting.

Representatives from the Ministry for European Union Affairs, Ministry of Development of Turkey, representatives of Kırklareli and Edirne governorships and municipalities and development agency attended the meeting from Turkish side. Representatives from various ministries, local authorities from Haskovo, Yambol and Bourgas and several non-governmental organizations also attended the meeting from Bulgarian side.

During the meeting the participants were acquainted on the latest developments of IPA II Legal framework and the development of the preparation of the future IPA CBC programme between Republic of Bulgaria and Republic of Turkey.

After extensive discussion and after presentation of various options and proposals, the final decision of the JWG members was for the new programming period the Bulgaria-Turkey IPA CBC Programmer 2014-2020 to have two priorities. In addition, a decision was taken, where possible and because of its exceptional importance, activities targeting youth, education and the promotion of competitiveness to be included as cross-cutting themes into the two main priorities.

Regarding the decision for the location of the future Joint Secretariat, both Managing and National Authority presented their positions on the positive and negative aspects related to changing location of the Secretariat. After discussion the JWG took the decision the Secretariat to preserve its location in Haskovo (main office) and in Edirne (branch office) for programming period 2014-2020.

Signed_Minutes_Final_JWG_BG_TR.pdf (973.16 KB)

presentation_MA_TP_Roadmap.pptx (323.86 KB)

presentations___Programming.rar (2.52 MB)