The Interregional group on cross-border cooperation of the European Committee of the Regions held its 24^th meeting in Brussels at the premises of the CoR on 20^th June. CESCI was represented by the secretary general, in person.

At the beginning of the meeting, the coordinator of the group, Pavel Branda greeted the participants being present in person and online and presented the agenda.

Slaven Klobučar, representing the COTER secretariat, summarised the planned activities of the institution, including the two reports being drafted which were presented later on, namely, the one on the future of European Territorial Cooperation programmes by Karsten Uno Petersen and the other on the free movement of ambulance cars across the borders by the coordinator of the group.

The first document, which is open to be commented on by the beginning of July, recommends the increase of the share of Interreg programmes within the Cohesion Policy package from 2,5 to 8%. Both reports will be prepared for the CoR’s plenary scheduled for November.

During the final part of the meeting the AEBR, the MOT and the CESCI gave information on their current activities. The secretary general of CESCI drew attention to the Art of Cooperation conference of the Hungarian Presidency (between 13 and 15 November), the #ACCESS project designed to eliminate cross-border obstacles and invited the participants to unite their efforts in order to protect the Interreg programmes beyond 2027.