Good neighbours grow up together and give each other a hand, they share the same home, and they keep their doors open. In fact, ENI CBC is about neighbourhood. Is about people across the same borders having the means to act together, building roads to connect markets and improve tourism; recycling waste into fertilisers; preserving threatened species to reverse biodiversity decline. This is the ENI CBC community: hundreds of thousands of people working across the external borders of the EU, European and non-European alike, bound together to stimulate economic growth, to deliver knowledge transfers, to fight common environmental challenges.
A total of 15 cooperation programmes are implemented today, stretching from Finland and Russia in the North, to countries like Hungary and Ukraine in the East, and Italy, Northern Africa and the Middle East in the South. With a total EU funding of 1 billion €, the 15 programmes benefit also from the national contributions of Member States and Partner Countries.
All funds combined, around 900 projects have been financed to date throughout the entire community and are ongoing at the moment. More than 2.000 local institutions, organizations and associations – both from the public and the private sectors – are working to make this cooperation a reality. They belong to 31 different countries, they speak – sometimes – different languages, they eat – not always – different food: but they all work for the benefit of local communities on both sides of the EU border. It is a “small” world dedicated to find joint solutions to address common obstacles. And to bring tangible results to their regions.
The projects contribute to the development of cross-border areas in various fields, from environmental protection to technology transfer in favour of SMEs; from cultural heritage regeneration to inclusion of the most vulnerable segments of society. Read more about this reality in the “About” section of this exhibition. And watch our video to see how – beside the environmental, social, economic endeavours – a wealth of human relations is built, breaking down stereotypes, overturning historical prejudices. Even answers to crises cannot mature in isolation, because viruses or earthquakes ask no visa to cross. Come and meet the ENI CBC community: because neighbours matter!