NOSTRA at INTERREG EUROPE event in France

The national event for presenting the new INTERREG EUROPE programme in France took place on 12th May 2015, in Paris. This was an opportunity for the programme's authorities and secretariat to inform the French stakeholders with what has changed in the new generation of the interregional cooperation programme. Antoine Surget, head of European territorial cooperation department in Pas-de-Calais County Council, Lead partner of NOSTRA project, was invited to present the main features of the project in order to give the French stakeholders an overview of what can be achieved in interregional projects.

A specific focus was made on the 'territorial meetings'. During the three years of the project, a group of local stakeholders gathered every six months in each region of the partnership in order to exchange on the topic of the project. One meeting out of two was organised at cross-border level in every strait of the partnership, highlighting the cross-border specificity of the regions involved in the project. NOSTRA project was not the only INTERREG IVC project to organise such meetings with local stakeholders in order to make sure that the project benefits to all; in the new generation of the programme, it will be compulsory for all the project partners to set up such a local stakeholder groups in their region, to involve other relevant stakeholders in the cooperation process and ensure that the project will truly have a leverage effect on the region's public policies.

Another specificity of NOSTRA project was stressed out during this event: the 'implementation plans'. Indeed, after 3 years of exchange of experience, each partner of NOSTRA project has been asked to write an 'implementation plan' in order to plan the transfer of some good practices identified at the scale of the partnership within its own territory and implement the lessons learnt. From now on, every INTERREG EUROPE project partner will have to write such an action plan during the project lifetime. Moreover, 2 years each project will be specifically dedicated to the implementation of the action planned.

The Power point presentation (in French) can be downloaded here:

NOSTRA - Presentation of the project at the French national INTERREG EUROPE event

For more information about the INTERREG EUROPE programme, please visit the website of the programme.