On 8 November 2021 the 8th meeting of the Joint Programming Committee (JPC) was held online to discuss key chapters of the Programme Document (PD) of the Estonia-Russia CBC Programme 2021-2027.
The meeting was chaired by Mr Daniil Turlanov, Deputy Head of Division, the Department of development of integration projects and CIS countries, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
Experts from the Institute of Baltic Studies (IBS) provided the overview of the main development challenges, followed by open discussion on the Policy and Specific Objectives, activities and indicators relevant to the regional needs of the Programme area and development strategies of the cooperating countries in new period.
Based on thorough discussion it was agreed to organize in the period December 2021 – January 2022 public hearings on the Programme Document, describing joint main challenges of the bordering regions, including among others support for business development, environment with focus on transition to circular economy and water management, and proposed set of actions to tackle them.
Ms Unda Ozolina, the head of the JTS, introduced to the audience the PD chapter Approach to communication and visibility, as the next step the chapter will be submitted to the EC for the preliminary consultation.
Based on the state of play of estimation of strategic environmental assessment (SEA), presented by Ms Ege Ello, head of the MA, it was decided to agree on the list of activities for the basis of preliminary SEA analysis.
The meeting was concluded with discussion of open issues in Territorial Analysis (TA) laid down by the Experts of the Institute of Baltic Studies resulted in relevant decisions taken. 29 participants – JPC members, EC representative and expert from TESIM and IBS, staff of the Managing Authority and Joint Technical Secretariat took part in the meeting.
The 9th meeting of the Joint Programming Committee is scheduled for December 2021.