Interreg GO! – European Commission consultation closing event in the European Capital of Culture

Knowledge sharing + Programming | 08 April 2025

Interreg GO! – European Commission consultation closing event in the European Capital of Culture

Knowledge sharing + Programming | 08 April 2025

On 27-28 March 2025, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy organised a conference summarising the consultation process on the future of the Interreg programmes in the twin towns of Gorizia and Nova Gorica, located on the Italian-Slovenian border. The event brought together more than 500 representatives of the programmes concerned, professional organisations and applicants.

In 2025, Gorizia and Nova Gorica, once a single municipality, holds the title of European Capital of Culture. They host a number of major events throughout the year. At the end of March, participants summarised the results of the EU consultation on the second objective of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy, European Territorial Cooperation.

The participants were welcomed by Massimiliano Fedriga, President of the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia on behalf of the hosts, Aleksander Jevšek, Minister for Cohesion and Regional Development on behalf of the Slovenian partners, Raffaele Fitto, Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms on behalf of the European Commission and Marta Kos, Commissioner for Enlargement.

The participants of the first day’s three panels, moderated by Commission staff, discussed the results and conclusions of the consultation on the future of Interreg programmes in 2024, taking into account the perspectives of each programme.

It was reported that nearly 15,000 people filled in the consultation questionnaire, attaching particular importance to the results achieved so far and to the continuation of the programmes, as cross-border cooperation is seen as a laboratory for the European Union. The development of border regions also fits in with the “right to stay”, as expressed by the EU High Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen. However, it was also said that, like cohesion policy as a whole, the Interreg system needs to be modernised. This means, on the one hand, that, as in the case of the Recovery and Resilience Instrument (RRF), new performance indicators will be introduced for territorial cooperation programmes (data and knowledge sharing, effective communication, etc.), which will also determine the timing and level of payments. On the other hand, the experience of recent years has shown that greater thematic and geographical flexibility will be needed, as the priorities of the seven-year programming cycle are increasingly being overridden by unforeseen events (the war in Ukraine has led to the reallocation of €150 million between Interreg programmes). This flexibility should also allow greater freedom for programmes to test new solutions and to take account of territorial differences in the intervention logic of programmes. This innovation is particularly important for the development of cross-border public services and for cross-border risk management and the removal of legal and administrative barriers that hinder it.

The grassroots nature of Interreg programmes and their governance model should be preserved, reinforcing the role of small grants for people-to-people cooperation (especially for young people), including study visits and the promotion of bilingualism. A more structured cooperation with the European Groupings of Territorial Communities should be sought. At the same time, speakers encouraged the creation of synergies with the (mainstream) programmes distributed at national level and with other Interreg programmes of territorial relevance.

Younous Omarjee,
the Vice-President of the European Parliament expressed the EP’s support for Interreg, but warned that they must also fight to preserve Cohesion Policy itself. The spirit of cooperation has been weakened, as illustrated by the recent introduction of internal Schengen border controls in several countries.
Jan Szyszko
State Secretary for the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, stressed that competitiveness cannot be increased without strengthening cohesion. He also pointed out that the era of globalism is over and that European countries must create the conditions for their own security, which will also affect the priorities of the multiannual budget.
Sandro Gozi
MEP reports in a video message on the success of the adoption of the EU regulation facilitating the use of the BRIDGEforEU (formerly ECBM and FCBS) instrument. He thanked the Belgian and Hungarian Presidencies for their cooperation during the process and indicated that, following his proposal, €4 million will be available in 2025 for the setting up of national cross-border coordination points (CBCPs), which he intends to continue to support in the coming years.
Raffaelle Fitto
called cooperation a founding value of the EU, the preservation of which is essential for the success of the whole integration process. To preserve this spirit of cooperation, it is important in the coming months that the actors concerned speak with one voice and one message in all fora.

After the conference, participants took part in panels including project visits on 6 different topics (culture and tourism, people-to-people cooperation, disaster management, innovation, water management, health). The two-day conference ended on the symbolic Transalpine Square, which was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia after the Second World War and finally integrated under the European Capital of Culture programme, completely removing the border between the two cities.