On 7 September 2020 the European Commission approved changes of the Latvia-Lithuania Programme document. Due to existing demand, over 2,5 mln. EUR were reallocated for the cross-border cooperation projects contributing to the sustainable and clean environment (priority No. 1 of the Programme) from funds for improvement of the efficiency of the public services (priority No. 4).

Although the EU programming period of the 2014-2020 comes to the end, this does not mean that the cross border cooperation will stop with the implementation of the funded projects and completion of the life cycle of the Interreg V-A Latvia – Lithuania Programme 2014-2020. Both, Latvia and Lithuania, have expressed strong interest in continuation of this type of cooperation among cross-border regions and started process of the development of the new Latvia – Lithuania Cross-Border Cooperation Programme for the period of 2021 – 2027 (Programme 2021-2027) already at the end of last year.

The Guidance how to implement the project via The Electronic Monitoring System has been updated on 28 April 2020. Version 4.0 of the Guidelines can be downloaded here. For the convenience of the users the updated parts are marked in yellow.

On 17 April the first contract on implementation of the 3rd call project “SEE ME” has been signed with the project’s lead partner Visaginas gymnasium “Verdene”. 42 projects of 3rd call were approved by the Monitoring Committee of the Programme at the end of February. Since then projects’ partners with the support of the Joint Secretariat have been implementing conditions of the projects’ approval. It is planned, that the most of the contracts will be signed and the projects will start their activities in the upcoming months.