“Bringing Territoriality into Interreg-Territoriality and Functional Areas” seminar was conducted online by the INTERACT which supports the management bodies of the cross border cooperation programmes implemented throughout Europe.

The representatives from several cross border cooperation programmes and the European Commission (DG REGIO) participated in the web-seminar. Head of Department of Union Programmes and Cross Border Cooperation Ms. Şebnem Sözer, EU Affairs Experts Mr. Serkan Bozkurt, Ms. Semiha Öztürk and Ms. Övünç Güneş represented Turkey under Interreg-IPA Bulgaria-Turkey CBC Programme and ENI Black Sea Basin CBC Programme whose National Authority is the Directorate for EU Affairs.

European Commission aims to guarantee that the cross border cooperation programmes will have stronger territorial perspective in the 2021-2027 period.  In this context, it is possible to include “functional areas” in the programme areas which will be determined by each cooperation programme. Our analysis to determine the functional areas for the Programmes that Turkey participates is still going on.