The institution that performs an inspection of the financial records in order to confirm the legal soundness of the funding claims.
The AA is responsible to develop an audit strategy. It is assisted by a Group of Auditors (GoA) comprising a representative of each partner states. The AA and the GoA are responsible for audits and coordinate their work.

The partner states have appointed the Federal Chancellery of Austria, department IV/3 Financial Control of the ERDF to act as AA. For more information on the programme management, please click here.

Each partner state of the Alpine Space Programme has a contact point, securing a link between the transnational and the national/regional level in the programme implementation. The contact point assists Project Partners during the project generation, application and implementation.

For more information on the programme management, please click here. To be re-directed to the ACPs contacts, please click here.

Binding document which describes the project and gives detailed information on the work plan and financial figures. It also contains all the most important information concerning the project’s aims, strategy, activities and partnership.

The AF has to be submitted during the 2^nd step of the application procedure and it is the document that is evaluated by the programme bodies in order to select the projects. Once the projects is approved, the AF becomes the reference document for the whole implementation of the project until its closure.

For more information on the application procedure, please click here.

Framework convention having as the main purposes the safeguard of the Alpine natural ecosystem and the strengthening of a sustainable development in the area, promoting economics and cultural interests of the resident population.

The convention is an international Treaty signed by all 8 Alpine States (Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Slovenia and Switzerland + the EU) composed by 9 thematic protocols.

To know more about the Convention’s main bodies, activities and aims, please click here.

The Alpine Space Programme 2007-2013 is part of the European Territorial Cooperation (Objective 3 of the Regional Policy 2007-2013). Together with 12 other programmes it strives for transnational cooperation in and between the European regions.

The programme shall give impulses with regard to the objectives of growth, employment, competitiveness, equality and sustainability. The ETC is fully embedded in the EU regional policy, and in particular, the contribution to the achievement of the Lisbon&Gothenburg strategy is one of its cornerstones. 

To have a look at the cooperation area, please click here.

The CA is mainly responsible for drawing-up and submitting certified statement of expenditure and application for ERDF payment to the European Commission. Moreover, it is responsible for making the ERDF payments to the Lead Partner of approved projects. The partner states have appointed the Land of Salzburg, represented by the Government Office of the Land Salzburg, department 15 for Economy, Tourism and Energy (sub-unit Promotion of Economy and Technology) to act as Certifying Authority.

Competition round, where the programme bodies ‘call’ for project proposals. Specific Terms of References (ToRs) trace the guiding principles to be applied to the above mentioned call. The opening and closing dates of the call are decided by the Programme Committee. Depending on the availability of funds, it is foreseen lo launch one call per year. As soon as a call is launched, it will be announced on this website.

For more information, please contact your relevant ACP or the JTS.

The manifold results of the various projects implemented in the previous Interreg IIIB Alpine Space Programme and the experiences made in programme and project implementation in mutual learning processes shall be exploited and used as starting point for transnational co-operation in the new Structural Funds period 2007-2013. Whenever relevant, implementation of projects taking up these results will be encouraged, thus avoiding the dispersion of existing knowledge and relations in the cooperation area.

To be re-directed to the results’ section of the ASP Interreg IIIB, please click here.

To be re-directed to the running projects of the present programming periode, please click here.

International NGO, with offices in each Alpine country, acting as information platform for the experts and non-experts alike, both in and outside of the Alps. CIPRA’s objective is to promote the potential of the Alpine Space at many levels and to preserve its cultural and natural diversity.

For more information, please click here.

Certificate based on expenses clearly justified and declared eligible for ERDF co-funding. Each project participant must have its expenditure certified by an authorised body, in the form of a Certification of Expenditures (see factsheet 6.2 and factsheet 6.10). The CoEs have to be submitted together with a corresponding progress report.

For more information, please contact your relevant ACP or the JTS. 

Programme’s eligible area composed of regions belonging to the 7 partner states (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Lichtenstein, Slovenia and Switzerland). To see the map, please click here.

Moreover, also activities carried out outside the cooperation area can be considered eligible.

For further details on the topic, please consult the factsheet 2.4.

EU regional policy programme which promotes projects whose partnership is constituted by partners coming from two or more states and who are located in the border area. “The cross-border cooperation between adjacent regions aims to develop cross-border social and economic centres through common development strategies.”*

Besides the cross-border programme, the ETC has two other strands, the transnational and the interregional ones.

For more information on the all cross-border, transnational and interregional programmes, please click here.  

(*Source: www.ec.europa.eu/regional_policy)

A threshold under which aid measures are deemed not to meet all the criteria of Article 87(1) of the EU Treaty. Only in exceptional cases state aid will be granted in the Alpine Space Programme. In these cases the ERDF and the national co-funding granted to a project participant shall stay within the limits as set out in Commission Regulation (EC) n. 1998/2006 on de minimis aid.

For more information, please click consult factsheet 6.4 (State aid) or the Commission Regulation 1998/2006.

Programmes funded by EU structural funds face a risk of decommitment of funds if the latter have not been used within three years from the date of  commitment by the programme (n+3 rule).

Indeed, the European Commission can decommit any part of a budget commitment of an Operational Programme that has not been used by 31 December:

1) of the third year following the year of budget commitment until 2010;

2) of the second year following the year of budget commitment from 2010 on.

The programme relies on making regular payment to projects but is ultimately dependent on projects ensuring consistency in both their spending and reporting.

If delays would occur at project level, the allocated ERDF funding could then be at risk.

For all the necessary information, please click here.

The conditions which have to be met in order to take part to an ASP co-funded project. These are composed by a set of criteria assessed in the selection procedure of calls which have to be met in order to enable the further content assessment of a project proposal.

For more information, please click here or consult section 4.2 of the Operational Programme.

Costs that can be considered in order to get a co-funding from the ERDF.

To consult the eligibility rules of the programme, please click here or get in touch with your relevant ACP or with the JTS.

The EoI is a 6 pages form which presents the objective of the project, the foreseen budget, the activities, their location and the cooperation area covered as well as the foreseen outputs and results and the structure of the partnership. The EoI has to be submitted during the 1^st step of the application procedure.

For more information on the application procedure, please click here.

An EU fund which “is intended to help reduce imbalances between regions of the Community. The Fund was set up in 1975 and grants financial assistance for development projects in the poorer regions. In terms of financial resources, the ERDF is by far the largest of the EU's Structural Funds.”*

The main aim of the ERDF is to overcome the structural deficiencies of the poorer regions in order to overcome the gap between these regions and the richer ones.

(*Source:  http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/glossary)

The rate up to which the ERDF covers the total costs of a project. The ERDF co-finding rate of the ASP 2007-2013 is up to 76% of the project’s costs.