EUROPARC Federation amongst applicants in new Interreg programmes

A wave of interest hits the 2014-2020 Interreg programmes

The new Interreg programmes Alpine Space and CENTRAL EUROPE closed their first calls recently and received a wave of expressions of interests for the first step of the application process. More than 200 light application forms were submitted to the Alpine Space and 620 to the CENTRAL EUROPE programme. Until 2020 around 140 million Euros (Alpine Space) and 80 million Euros (CENTRAL EUROPE) will be made available for projects in these regions.

“We are pleased that the first call of the new Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme attracted such huge interest all over central Europe,” said Christiane Breznik from the managing authority in the City of Vienna. “It shows that the programme addresses relevant challenges and needs of the programme area. Private organisations are well represented among the submitted proposals, with 37 percent of applicants coming from the private sector.”

EUROPARC together with Federparchi-EUROPARC Italy and other partners submitted two projects with a focus on sustainable tourism development, one to the Alpine Space and one to the CENTRAL EUROPE programme. Another project was submitted to the CENTRAL EUROPE programme in partnership with the Western Pomerania Regional Landscape Parks (PL) as well as member and non-member parks of EUROPARC on fostering transboundary cooperation in Protected Areas in Germany and Eastern Europe. We very much look forward to the outcomes of the first step of application process, which we will expect for September this year.

For those of our members situated in North and West Europe, the call for Interreg North West Europe programme is still open. Deadline is 18th May.