The Cooperation Programmes between Norway and Romania are important, exciting and opens for new opportunities. That were the conclusions when the programmes were launched in Bucharest and Sofia on November 13 and 15, 2007.
20/11/2007
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Great interest for participation
Around 500 representatives from public or private companies, institutions, ministries, non-governmental organisations and social partners participated on each of the two seminars launching both the Norwegian Cooperation Programmes and the EEA Financial Mechanism (EEA Grants), and among them were between 40 and 50 participants from Norway. This shows that there is a great interest from both sides for parttaking in projects that stimulate development in Bulgaria and Romania.
The participants could hear the State Secretary from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Walaas’ views on the cooperation between Norway and Bulgaria, and her expectations to the results of both the Norwegian Programmes and the EEA Financial Mechanisms. In Sofia, the Vice Minister of the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance, Lyubomir Datzov, talked about the Bulgarian Government’s expectations to the new programmes. Razvan Cotovelea from the Romanian Ministry of Finance opened the seminar in Bucharest, and emphasised the great opportunities that the programme represents.
A new era
Elisabeth Walaas called the programmes a new era in the cooperation between Norway and the two countries. – Norway is taking part in the EU in several ways, even though we are not members. Most important is the EEA-agreement that makes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein a part of EU’s inner market. Through the EEA-agreement, Norway is also participating in project collaboration and activities such as research, information services, education and training, environment, work life, and entrepreneurship, said Walaas.
Workshops
In both cities, Innovation Norway and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the programmes with speakers from Norway, Romania and Bulgaria, and also presenting good examples of project partnerships. Afterwards, the participants discussed their fields of work in a number of parallel workshop sessions. The participants showed great interest for the workshops, and there were good dialogues and discussions about important questions relating to the programmes and the challenges that the Beneficiary states are facing.
Networking
The seminars were important arenas for networking, as partnership between Norwegian and Romanian or Bulgarian partners is a condition for support in the programmes. Several of the participants in both Sofia and Bucharest mentioned that they had met potential partners during the seminars.