The EU cooperation programmes with neighbouring regions include 184 regions with 260 million people in 33 countries and laid down along the EU external borders from the Northern Periphery to the Mediterranean region and from Atlantic to Black Sea Basin. These programmes support economic and social development of the border areas through joint actions including in environment protections, public health services, safety and security measures, connectivity, support to SMEs and entrepreneurship.
The cross-border cooperation (CBC) between EU Member States and Neighbourhood region was first established under European Neighbourhood policy and funded by the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) for the period 2007-2013 with the aim to promote good neighbourhood relations and gradual economic integration of participating countries. This was further reconfirmed under the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) for the period 2014-2020.
In 2021-2027, the cooperation will be governed by the EU Cohesion policy and the programmes will be fully part of Interreg. In order to highlight the external dimension of Cohesion policy and at the same time to emphasise how close EU and partner countries stand, the new programmes is called “Interreg NEXT”.