The Managing Authority (MA) “Interreg 2021-2027” (Ministry of Economy and Finance), assisted by the Joint Secretariats (JSs) of the Programmes, is responsible for the overall management and implementation of five cross-border Cooperation Programmes in the context of the Programming Period 2021-2027, such as INTERREG VI-A “Greece – Bulgaria”, INTERREG VI -A “Greece – Italy”, INTERREG VI-A “Greece – Cyprus”, INTERREG VI-A IPA “Greece – Albania”, INTERREG VI-A IPA “Greece – North Macedonia” and, at the same time, is responsible for the completion of management of the relevant programmes of the programming period 2014-2020.
It is also the “National Authority – National Contact Point” in Greece for the transnational cooperation programmes (C.P.) “Interreg Euro-MED”, “Interreg IPA ADRION”, “Interreg NEXT Mediterranean Sea Basin” (“NEXT MED”), “Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin”, the interregional C.P. “Interreg Europe” as well as “INTERACT”. It is worth mentioning that INTERACT ensures the exchange of experience, information and innovation in order to promote best practice and make cooperation easier between Programmes, through targeted events, publications and tools.
The Joint Secretariats contribute to the provision of support and assistance to the Managing Authority. Moreover, they are the points of contact and support for the potential Beneficiaries and the Project Beneficiaries (project partners) and participate in the facilitation / processing of communication between the representatives of the Programmes’ cooperating countries.
The First Level Control: In order to verify the expenditure, each Member State sets up a verification system, which allows the verification of the co-financed deliverables (products / services), the documentation of the expenditure declared for operations or parts of operations and compliance with the European Union and National rules.
Verifications are carried out by auditors designated by the Member States respectively and include the following procedures:
- administrative verifications
- on-the–spot verifications
The Certifying Authority is, among other, responsible for drawing up and submitting statements of verified expenditure of projects under the programmes, payment requests to the Commission and receipt of payments (from the European Commission).
The Audit Authority (EDEL) covers the needs of the execution of audits. For this purpose, organic units (Directorates and Independent Departments) have been established in the General Directorate of Audits of Co-financed Programs (of the Special Secretariat of Fiscal Audits of the General Secretariat of Fiscal Policy of the Ministry of Finance). The employees who work in the relevant organizational units of EDEL are registered in its “Record of Financial Auditors” and “Auditors”.
The Monitoring Committee, which consists of representatives of the Programmes’ participating countries, supervises the implementation of the programmes and selects the projects to be co-financed. Its general objective is to ensure the quality and effectiveness of the implementation of the Programmes.