In order to introduce the 2014-2020 period of the Black Sea Basin Cross Border Cooperation Programme, whose National Authority is Ministry for EU Affairs, an Introduction Conference has been organized on 25 April 2016 in Dosso Dossi Downtown Hotel in İstanbul.

The opening speeches of the aforementioned event are made by the Beyza Turan, Financial Cooperation Director of Ministry for EU Affairs, and Emine DÖĞER, Acting Central Finance and Contracting Unit Director.

Financial Cooperation Director Ms. TURAN, in her speech in the event, highlighted that Black Sea Basin Cross Border Cooperation Programme aims a more powerful regional cooperation along and also to contribute to the positive dialog between EU Member States and neighboring countries. She also remarked that projects under sustainable social and economic development, tourism, culture, agriculture and related sectors will be supported under the Programme. Ms. TURAN mentioned that Programme enables the multilateral cooperation between public institutions, local administrations, universities and civil society organizations from Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, Greece and Turkey. She informed that around Programme is open to the participation of 25 provinces from Turkey including Edirne, Trabzon, İstanbul, Samsun, Tekirdağ, Çorum and many other which are located near or around Black Sea coast. Finally, she stressed that Programme’s 2014-2020 period’s first call for proposals will be launched in June 2016 and under this context 19,7 million Euro worth of grants will be available for beneficiaries, and furthermore Turkish partners can also be lead beneficiaries this time.

The general information about Black Sea Basin Programme is provided in the event along with the information about the main changes brought by the 2014-2020 period of the Programme and the lessons learnt from the projects implemented in 2007-2013 period. Moreover, the experiences of organizations and institutions who implemented projects under the Programme are also shared with the participants. The representatives of Ministry for EU Affairs stressed out that they will continue to provide all kinds of support to the organizations and institutions which apply to this new period call for proposals in 2016. They also mentioned that the application and project implementation of eligible institutions is going to have a significant impact both for the region and the Basin in general. The Ministry officials, pointed out that the internet site of the Programme (blacksea-cbc.net and cbc.ab.gov.tr should be closely monitored in order to be aware of the call for proposals and other developments.