Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) aims at cooperation with countries on the external borders of the European Union and find solutions to common problems together. The European Commission is also targeting cooperation between the NDICI Programmes and the Interreg programmes, where interregional cooperation and cross-border cooperation programmes are implemented. Thus, it is planned that the Madeira-Azores-Canarias (MAC) and Indian Ocean (Indian Ocean) Programmes under NDICI use jointly  the Interreg funds in 2021-2027.

Given the fact that Türkiye and Romania have already overcome these challenges, developed and tested this approach successfully in 2007-13 period in ENPI Black Sea Basin Programme, they shared own experience regarding 2007-2013 ENPI Black Sea Basin Programme, where IPA and ENPI funds were managed separately.

In order for MAC and Indian Ocean Programmes to overcome the foreseen obstacles in this process and to exchange experiences, a meeting was held in Bucharest. In addition to the Directorate for EU Affairs from Türkiye, the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration of the Republic of Romania, the managing authority of the Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme, the General Directorate for European Affairs of the Regional Administration of the Canary Islands, the managing authority of the MAC Programme, and the Regional Council of the Reunion Islands, the managing authority of the Indian Ocean Programme attended the meeting. The national authorities of Portugal and Spain and representatives of TESIM and INTERACT, which support the EU Commission for the Interreg Programmes, were also present at the meeting.

During the meeting, Türkiye and Romania shared their experiences of similar challenges in the ENPI Black Sea Basin Programme in the 2007-2023 period, where Türkiye participated in the programme with a different set of rules and the programme had separate management of IPA and ENPI funds. In this context, information and experiences were exchanged on programme management, legal framework, preparation of documents for the call for proposals, evaluation of project applications, monitoring, first level control, disbursements, audits, fund flow and what needs to be done for a successful implementation in the post-2027 period.  As the Turkish NA, we also shared our experience in other Interreg Programmes, namely Interreg Bulgaria-Türkiye and Interreg Next MED.