Russia invests in cross-border projects
Russian authorities have announced that they will counter the EUs allocations to the ENPI Kolarctic programme with a 14 million EUR sum. The decision signals a major Russian commitment to international project cooperation in the Barents Region.
The Russian allocation is unprecedented in size in the east-west project cooperation in the region. The Russian announcement comes after Russias special envoy to the EU, Sergey Yastrzembskii, last fall said that Russia in the period 2008-2013 will invest 122 million EUR in cross-border cooperation with the EU. The European Union on its side has announced that it will allocate 230 million EUR to the cooperation. The Kolarctic programme is a unique instrument which helps develop local and regional initiatives in the border areas, an official in the Murmansk regional administration says to B-port.com. The Russian allocation to the Kolarctic programme covers international cross-border projects between the Russian Murmansk Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Republic of Karelia and the Nenets AO, the Norwegian Finnmark, Troms and Nordland counties, the Swedish Norrbotten county and the Finnish Lapland county . The Programme Kolarctic ENPI CBC is one of the EUs new ENPI financing instruments, which are going to be implemented on the EUs external borders during the programme period 2007 2013. The Regional Council of Lapland works as the administrative authority of Kolarctic ENPI CBC Programme.
