Jenni Lintula / Arctic Centre

Kolarctic ENPI CBC program in full swing

The first call for proposals for the Kolarctic ENPI CBC program was from 11th January to 9th April 2010 and resulted 34 applications. The European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) for Cross Border Cooperation (CBC) is EU’s new funding instrument for EU’s external borders.

The first call for proposals in the Kolarctic ENPI CBC programme resulted 34 applications and 11,5 million euro applied. Applications came from all countries involved in the programme and the scale of their content was wide according the http://www.kolarcticenpi.info. The Monitoring Committee of Kolarctic ENPI CBC has approved 11 projects to be financed and five proposals are still under consideration.

Kolarctic ENPI CBC program promotes cross-border co-operation on a program area that includes the northern parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway and a large area of North-West Russia. Kolarctic ENPI Program document was approved 19.12.2008. Russian decided in October 2009 about the Russian contribution to the financing of Kolarctic ENPI CBC. According to the decision, the Russian Federation will allocate 14 million Euros to the program.

The financed projects must have at least one actor from an EU Member State and one actor from Russia. Priority is given to the projects with partners from more than two countries. The program will be implemented by financing projects, by which organizations can develop their own activities with cross-border partners. The program period is 2007 – 2013.



The first call for proposals was from 11th January to 9th April 2010.  The Schedule of the next call for proposals is not yet confirmed.

The Joint Programme Document Kolarctic ENPI CBC is planned and written in co-operation between the participating countries and regions during the two years of the programme preparation period. Priorities (proportion of the funding) of the ENPI program are

1. Economic and social development (40%)
2. Common challenges (25%)
3. People to people cooperation and identity building (25%)
Technical assistance (10%)

As the administrative authority the Regional Council of Lapland is responsible for the program’s operational management. The Regional Council of Lapland organizes information seminars for the interested program applicants around the area. More information about the program and the electronic application form can be found from the website: http://www.kolarcticenpi.info .