Pre-announcement of the Open Call on fostering institutional cross-border cooperation with Ukraine

08.08.2019

Call number:  GGC01

Call launching: September 2019

Call closure: January 2020

The call will be launched by the Programme Operator – the Government Office of the Slovak Republic under EEA Grants

The objective of the call is to find projects dedicated to fostering institutional cross-border cooperation with Ukraine related to good governance, accountable institutions, transparency and contributing to improved integrity and accountability of public administration. The main ambition of this Call is to support high quality projects fostering institutional cross-border cooperation among Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions in the area of good governance, accountable institutions and transparency. This call is primarily dedicated to national cooperation between Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions to support larger scale initiatives. The programme will support activities aimed at the improvement of integrity and accountability of public institutions in Slovakia and Ukraine. In addition, activities focused on facilitating the Ukrainian accession process to the EU shall be prioritised.

Project grant: EUR 200,000 – EUR 1 000,000

Total allocation: EUR 2,000,000

Eligible applicants:     Any public entity established as a legal person in the Slovak republic

Eligible partners:

Mandatory partner:   Any public entity established as a legal person in Ukraine

Other partner:           Any public or private entity, commercial or non-commercial, as well as non-governmental organisations established as a legal person either in the Donor States[1], Beneficiary States[2] or a country outside the European Economic Area that has a common border with the respective Beneficiary State[3], or any international organisation or body or agency thereof, actively involved in, and effectively contributing to, the implementation of a project

Co-financing:              Not applicable

Financing: payments of the project grant shall take the form of an advance payment, interim payments and a final payment. The level of advance payment to projects shall be set out in the project contract.

Expected date of the project contracts signature: the expected date of the first signed project contracts will be September 2020.

Further conditions:

  1. The mandatory attachments to the Grant Application will be the Budget and the Letter of Intent or draft Partnership Agreement with the mandatory partner.
  2. This call is primarily not intended for infrastructure (hard measures)[4].

Eligible activities:

The project grant can be used for the following purposes and activities in the area of good governance, accountable institutions and transparency:

(a) networking, exchange, sharing and transfer of knowledge, technology, experience and best practice,

(b) joint seminars, workshops and trainings organized between Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions,

(c) internships realized between Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions,

(d) secondments from Ukraine to Slovakia,

(e) improvement of the level of bilingualism in Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions (e. g. language course),

(f) awareness raising and capacity building in Slovak and Ukrainian public institutions,

(g) joint strategies of public institutions in Slovakia and Ukraine provided that at least one pilot element of the joint strategy is implemented within the project,

and (h) awareness raising activities  and the activities aiming at appropriate communication about the ambitions and the achieved results of the project to the general public (mandatory activity).

Priority shall be given to:

  • Projects with activities that are sufficiently described, needed and appropriate.
  • Projects reflecting the recommendations of the OECD recommendation of the Council on Public integrity [5].
  • Projects to be implemented in partnership with entities from Norway/ Iceland/ Liechtenstein, especially a partner from the public sector.
  • Projects aimed at facilitating the Ukrainian accession process to the EU.
  • Projects including cooperation with an NGO active in the field of good governance as a project partner/cooperating entity.
  • Projects involving cooperation with line ministries in Slovakia and Ukraine.

Eligible expenditures: except for the so-called “excluded expenditures” listed in Article 8.7 of the Regulation, all types of expenditures can be eligible, provided that they meet the conditions listed in the Call and in Article 8.2, 8.3 and 8.5 of the Regulation on the Implementation of the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021.

Launch of the Open call for bilateral relations for establishing and development of the partnership for the call GGC01 and call GGC02 is planned for 19th August 2019.

The objective of this call will be the support of visits and meetings of applicants from Slovakia with their potential partners from Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. These activities can be funded under the Programme Bilateral Fund, which will provide small grants up to 5 000 EUR, covering mainly the related travel costs.


[1] Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein

[2] For the full list of the Beneficiary States consult the document Agreement on the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:02eed2b7-da51-11e5-8fea-01aa75ed71a1.0011.02/DOC_2&format=PDF 

[3] Ukraine

[4] For the purposes of the Programme the infrastructure (hard measures) are defined as any activities that require a building permit/a building announcement or purchase of buildings or estates.

[5] https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/OECD-Recommendation-Public-Integrity.pdf