Glossaire

An associated project partner is a project partner participating in the project without financially contributing to it.

A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, governments or combinations. They may work in a partnershiop to increase the likelihood of each achieving their mission, and to amplify their reach.

The Union part of the programme area is the part of the geographical area covered by the programme that are EU territories. In some programmes, the programme area may also cover territories outside EU (e.g., Norway, Switzerland, etc.), thus be outside the Union part of the programme area.

A candidate country is a country negotiating to join the EU, prospective or aspiring or would-be members, EU contenders, possible/likely/potential future member countries.

A reporting period is a designated period of time during the project lifetime; activities carried out and expenditure incurred and paid (unless simplified cost options apply) during a reporting period are presented in a Progress Report, and are subject to programme co-financing.

The project implementation phase starts after project approval, and is the period when project partners perform the activities which were presented in the application form and approved by the programme.

An accounting document of equivalent probative value is any document submitted by an implementing body to prove that the book entry gives a true and fair view of the transactions actually made, in accordance with standard accounting practice.

The budget ceiling is the upper limit of available budget, in terms of total budget per project, per partner, budget per workpackage or budget per reporting period.

The evaluation plan is the strategic document which will accompany a programme throughout its life and support its result orientation. In the new programming period it is compulsory for the Managing Authority to draft an evaluation plan for their Cooperational Programme. The purpose of an evaluation plan is to improve the quality of evaluations carried out during the programming period, and to provide a framework for planning impact evaluation. In addition, it ensures that evaluations provide inputs for annual implementation and progress reports.

Cohesion Policy is the European Union's strategy to promote and support the ‘overall harmonious development’ of its Member States and regions. Enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Art. 174), the EU's cohesion policy aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion by reducing disparities in the level of development between regions. The policy focuses on key areas which will help the EU face up to the challenges of the 21st century and remain globally competitive. Approximately 32.5 % of the EU budget 2014-2020 (equivalent to ca. EUR 351.8 billion over seven years at 2014 prices) is allocated to financial instruments which support cohesion policy. These are managed and delivered in partnership between the European Commission, the Member States and stakeholders at the local and regional level.

Pre-financing payments are made between 2014 and 2016 once the Commission has approved an operational programme. Initial pre-financing is made in yearly instalments of 1 % of the funding amount for the operational programme over the entire programming period. From 2016 to 2023, an annual pre-financing of between 2 % and 3 % of the entire funding amount is paid.

"Polluter pays principle" (PPP) is one of the principles of the EU's environmental policy. The "polluter pays principle", which is mentioned in Article 191 § 3 of the TFEU (ex Article174, § 2, of the EC Treaty), means that the cost incurred in combating pollution and nuisances in the first instance falls to the polluter; i.e., the polluting industry. Given, however, that the polluting industry can pass the cost of the prevention or elimination of pollution on to the consumer, the principle amounts to saying that polluting production should bear the expenditure corresponding to the measures necessary to combat pollution (investment in apparatus and equipment for combating pollution, implementation of new processes, operating expenditure for anti-pollution plant, etc.), and the charges, the purpose of which is to encourage the polluter himself to take, as cheaply as possible, the necessary measures to reduce the pollution caused by him (incentive function) or to make him bear his share of the costs of collective purification measures (redistribution function). The European guidelines on State Aid for environmental protection are designed to ensure that aid granted for environmental purposes complies with the "polluter pays" principle.

A programme priority (axis) is an area of thematic intervention in the programme.

Minutes are permanent, formal, detailed written records of discussions held and decisions taken at an official meeting.

The Cooperation Programme (CP) is a document setting out programmes objectives, priority axes, indicators, financing plan, etc. as explained in Art. 8 ETC Regulation 1299/2013 and presented in the Model for cooperation programmes under European Territorial Cooperation goal. In the case of the Investment for Growth and Jobs goal, this document is called Operational Programme.

A project is a sequence of tasks needed to achieve fixed objectives with limited resources (budget and staff) and within a defined timeframe.