What is INTERREG?

European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), better known as Interreg, is one of the two goals of the EU Cohesion Policy and provides a framework for the implementation of joint actions and policy exchanges between national, regional and local actors from different Member States.

The overarching objective of European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) is to promote a harmonious economic, social and territorial development of the Union as a whole.

Interreg is built around three strands of cooperation:

• Cross-border (Interreg A)
• Transnational (Interreg B)
• Interregional (Interreg C)

Five programming periods of Interreg have succeeded each other from 1990 onwards.

The EU Cohesion Policy

The Interreg programmes are financed in the framework of the EU Regional Policy, also referred as Cohesion Policy due to its aim to dissolve regional disparities between Europe’s regions. This investment policy consumes around one third of the EU’s budget. It targets all regions and cities in the European Union in order to support job creation, business competitiveness, economic growth, sustainable development, and improve citizens’ quality of life.

INTERREG – Our joint brand!

European Territorial Cooperation is composed of nearly 100 programmes represented by many programme logos. During the period 2007-2013, these programmes have supported more than 7400 projects, who in turn have also developed their own logo. All the brands developed (programmes and projects) are short-lived, and create a confusing diversity with no visibility for European Territorial Cooperation and at a high cost, both financially and in human resources. Consequently, there is not real awareness of this major tool of European integration.

2014 sees the beginning of a new budgetary period, and programmes will be developing their communication strategies and adopting an adequate brand. Several of them initiated the idea that a joint brand would improve the visibility of European Territorial Cooperation, making it easier to attract potential beneficiaries, easier to promote results and also easier to cooperate amongst programmes.

The MED Programme actively contributed to this process and will thus also follow the joint branding approach.