Among the topics for discussion were the new round of financial assistance granted to Romania in the framework of the EEA Enlargement Agreement, funding opportunities for private companies through EU funds, the main provisions of the new Labour Code as well as a new Fund for civic initiatives of the Civil Society Development Foundation.
The Norwegian ambassador, Mr. Øystein Hovdkinn, opened the meeting with a briefing on the results achieved under the EEA and Norway Grants in Romania between 2009 – 2011 and on the Embassy activity in 2011, followed by some updates regarding the new enlarged financial assistance package amounting to about 305 million EUR. This funding will most likely be available for Romania starting with 2012 and it will be focused on supporting inter alia civil society, environmental, and CCS projects. Further information about the funding opportunities and about the priority sectors under the EEA and Norway Grants 2009-2014 is available on the Embassy’s homepage and at www.eeagrants.org.
The agenda of the meeting also included company updates by the NORTEAM members and introduction of the new comers. Further, the participants were briefed on the funding opportunities in the framework of the EU Funds currently available for Romania. Mr. Florin Banatean, from the Romanian branch of KPMG, made a presentation of the EU Operational Programmes which address companies’ needs, with concrete and practical information on funds available per programme, eligible applicants, sectors that can receive funding, etc. Details are available here.
Since labour relations in Romania have been subject to change in 2011, everybody welcomed the presentation of Mr. Mihai Anghel from the law firm NNDKP on the provisions of the new Labour Code. The participants received information on the main amendments brought to the labour legislation and on the new social dialogue legislation. For further details, please press here.
In last year’s NORTEAM meeting the participants were presented with
a series of incentives for a closer interaction between the business sector and the civil society. As a continuation of the initiative taken up in 2010, this year the Embassy invited Mr. Ionut Sibian from the Civil Society Development Foundation (CSDF) to present their new project, the Civic Innovation Fund which is meant to support the civic and public participation initiatives of NGOs and small communities. The main target of the Fund in the next 5 years is to direct minimum 2M Euro to the community, collected from social responsible companies and to become the direct connection between companies and nongovernmental organizations. Details about the Civic Innovation Fund are available at http://prezi.com/uyoy5gsz_o6f/civic-innovation-fund-presentation/.