Project content

The EU cofinanced Interreg V-A Austria-Hungary programme supports cooperation projects across the border region of Austria and Hungary. The main objective is to strengthen economic, social, cultural and ecologic contacts in the border region and to enhance regional competitiveness, contemporaneous weakening of regional disparities.

Austria and Hungary share a long history concerning cross-border cooperation. The framework of the programmes (PHARE, CBC, Interreg II-A, III-A and ETZ) which started 1995 was improved continuously. The cooperation and interaction between people, companies and institutions became self-evident, not only in the financed projects but in everyday life. This positive development will also be supported in the current period 2014-2020.

Partnerships containing at least one Austrian and one Hungarian partner, from which one has to be the leading partner, are able to be funded as in the former period 2007 – 2013. The lead partner is responsible for the project development and for the application of the project that has to be handed in to the Joint Secretariat. Further responsibilities concern the project management and the implementation of the whole project. Last but not least the lead partner is the only contact organisation for the programme management regarding matters of administration and reporting of the project respectively the only organisation able to sign the contract with the managing authority.

The following legal entities may act as lead partner or project partner:

• Public or public-equivalent institutions
• Non-profit organisations
• Other institutions which on project level act in public interest
• Private institutions, including private companies, having legal personality

Private individuals, political parties, direct subsidies to individual enterprises and profit-oriented activities within the framework of the project are not eligible.

Furthermore, partner institutions have to be located in the programme area or to be competent in their scope of action for certain parts of the eligible area (like ministries or other national institutions). In only exceptional cases, institutions from outside the programme area can participate in a project, provided they have special expertise not available in the programme area, but being essential for the project.