In parallel with the ongoing Estonia-Russia Programme, the programming process of the new cross-border co-operation programme between the two countries for the period 2021-2027 is actively running since 2019, and is in progress until today.
Responsible decision-making body in preparation is Joint Programming Committee (JPC) and consists of the representative of national and regional authorities of the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Federation. Other programme bodies involved in coordination of preparation are the Managing Authority, the Joint Technical Secretariat and its Branch offices.
Key milestones in the process:
- 3 Joint Programming Committee (JPC) meetings held in 2020 (March, June, November) and 5 JPC meetings held in 2021 (March, June, September, October, November); 9th JPC meeting is planned for January 2022.
- Task Force (TF) meetings on Programme content: June 2020 – until today (15).
- Task Force (TF) meetings on Programme management structure: June 2020 – until today (8).
- In September 2020, as a result of JPC and TF continuous discussions, preliminary list of supported Policy Objectives (PO) and Specific Objectives (SO) was made.
- Involvement of stakeholders through
focused events with the aim 1) to evaluate the importance and relevance of the
pre-selected objectives, 2) to define the needs and challenges of the programme
area, 3) to set the focus of the programme:
- November 2020 (focus on entrepreneurship),
- March 2021 (focus on tourism)
- March 2021 (focus on environment)
- February – March 2021: online stakeholders’ consultation, where all interested parties were able to participate and express their opinion on the focus of the programme.
- Territorial analysis of the programme area has been carried out.
- Strategic environmental screening of the programme area has been carried out.
- December 2021 – January 2022: public hearing of the Estonia-Russia programme document 2021-2027 (PD).
- Planned for 2022:
- January 2022: Elaboration of public hearing’s comments and JPC approval of the final PD.
- January-February 2022: official national consultations, submission of the PD to the governments of the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Federation.
- March 2022: submission of the PD to the European Commission.
- In parallel: preparation of Financing Agreement.