Apart from individually supporting the candidate countries and potential candidates for EU membership, the European Union provides financial and technical support in order to achieve the common (regional) priorities of IPA II beneficiaries.
This support is provided from the Multi-Beneficiary IPA, aimed at promoting regional cooperation and addressing the issues of general interest to all IPA beneficiaries. The development of regional cooperation is one of the key prerequisites for the EU accession process, and it has been confirmed at numerous summits between the countries of the European Union and the Western Balkans that accession to the European Union will progress alongside the development of regional cooperation.
In accordance with the relevant EU procedure, the main guidelines in the process of defining regional projects/actions are presented in the EU Multi-Beneficiary and Territorial Cooperation Strategy, defining the overall priorities, measures and areas of regional cooperation which will be financially supported in the period 2014-2020.
The process of preparing and implementing support programmes under this instrument is carried out in a centralized manner, which means that most of the activities during the preparation of projects and the preparation of tender documentation take place at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels. Participation of relevant national institutions from the region is ensured through consultations which lead to the harmonisation of the content of these projects and the expected results.
The aforementioned strategic document has also defined the indicative amount of support funds which, for the seven-year 2014-2020, amounts to approximately EUR 3 billion. The provided amount of support is directed to four priority areas:
support to regional investments;
support to territorial cooperation through the implementation of Cross-Border and
Transnational Cooperation Programmes;
support to regional structures and organizations; and
horizontal support to the common priorities of beneficiaries from the region.
You can find more information about this instrument at the following links:
https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/instruments/multi-beneficiary-programme_en