Summary of the 5th Monitoring Committee meeting

The 5^th Monitoring Committee (MC) meeting was held on 4^th April 2017 in Budapest, Hungary.

Before the members of the MC started the professional discussion, they offered a minute of silence in remembrance of Mr.  Imrich Fülöp, who was the representative of Košice region in the Task Force of the Programme and has passed unexpectedly.

The main topic of the meeting was to discuss and approve the project proposals submitted within the SKHU/1601 Call for Proposals (Priority axis 4). In line with the results of the quality assessment performed by independent Slovak and Hungarian assessors, the Joint Secretariat (JS) created a ranking list of the project proposals, structured according to their score. The projects, which can be financed from the available allocation, were above 75 points, so those formed the basis of the discussion.  After clarifying a few arising questions related to the assessment and project proposals, the members of the committee approved the list of 29 projects to be supported. The list of approved projects can be downloaded from here. 

Need for modifications in the assessment procedure was indicated by the MC, thus the JS agreed to organize a technical meeting with the participation of the programme bodies and the MC in order to improve the evaluation procedure together.

Active conversation started also on the project proposals submitted in the framework of SKHU/1701 Call for Proposals for Small Project Fund Umbrella Project. According to the two-step application procedure, during the first phase the partners submitted a short project proposal. The quality assessment of these proposals has already been done by the date of the MC meeting. The approval of the relevant projects was voted by the members unanimously, thus given the possibility to them to develop and submit additional documentation required in the second round of the selection process

Beyond the approval of the supported projects, the modification of the Manual for technical assistance activities, and the modification of the Visibility Guide of the Programme were also accepted.

Information on the Annual Communication Plan 2017 and the Report on annual communication plan 2016 were introduced to the MC members. If there are any comments phrased after the meeting, they can be sent to the JS in a written form and will be incorporated to the document.

Short presentation was held on the actual status of programme closing procedures of Hungary-Slovakia Cross-border Cooperation Programme 2007-2013 and the current state of the Final Implementation Report. The FIR was submitted to the European Commission (EC) within the given deadline by the Managing Authority.

As for the Annual Implementation Report, the discussion about it was postponed until the next MC meeting. It has to be submitted to the European Commission till 30^th of June, 2017.

The draft version of the Call for Proposals of Priority axis 3 (Promoting sustainable and quality employment and supporting labour mobility) was discussed during the meeting. The members haven’t decided the date of launching the Call yet, but agreed on the amendment and further development of the related documentation.

The members agreed on the date of the next MC meeting, which will be held in June, 2017 in the Slovak Republic.