A permanent Commission was formally established within an international conference on restoration of the E40 waterway, which took place in Brest (Belarus) on 27-28 March 2014. The Commission consists of representatives of ministries, water management departments, regional and local authorities, research institutes, civil society organizations from Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.

We would like to inform all our Beneficiaries that the following steps of simplification of the reporting procedure has been agreed with the Joint Managing Authority:

1) Financial Report - in Annex A-2 “Sources of funding” the amounts for project contributions - the lines “Beneficiary's financial contribution” and “Partner's .. financial contribution”- can be presented jointly for the whole project without breaking down into beneficiary and each partner. It means that the amounts in the columns: “Amount incurred in the reporting period (in EUR)”, “Cumulated costs (before current report) (in EUR)”, “Cumulated costs (from start of implementation to present report included) (in EUR)”, “Declared amount for the project (in EUR)”, “Progress indicator (%)”, “Declared amount (%)” do not have to be broken down by Beneficiary and Partner(s) any more. “Project financial contribution” shall be put down in the proportion as set in the Grant Contract;

2) Individual Financial Report - Separate financial reports, which are submitted from beneficiary and partner(s) to their auditor(s) to check the separate financial reports do not have to encompass all the Annexes (as in the consolidated financial report) but may include only tables A-4 and A-5 (applicable to the new templates of reports).

We would like to encourage you to consider the above simplification during the preparatory of financial reports.

Launching conference for the Local communities' initiatives projects took place on 13-14 March 2014 in Rzeszów, Poland. All the Lead Partners of the six contracted umbrella projects as well as all the partners participating in the 56 micro-projects were invited. The goal of the conference was to present the implementation rules and support the projects in understanding of the requirements of the Programme. The beneficiaries had also an opportunity to take advantage of group workshops and discuss the individual case studies with the project managers from the Joint Technical Secretariat. In total 116 representatives of the umbrella projects from Poland, Belarus and Ukraine participated in the conference.

On 27-28 March 2014, Brest regional executive committee will host an international inaugural conference and first session of the Commission on the development of the E40 waterway on the Dnieper-Vistula section. The list of invitees includes representatives of international organizations, diplomatic missions, Ministries of Transport, Infrastructure and Development, Ministries of Nature and Environmental Protection, water management departments, regional and local authorities from territories through which the E40 waterway passes, as well as Euroregions, research institutions, public organizations from Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and Germany.

In connection with numerous questions concerning the conclusion of civil law contracts with the personnel within the projects in the Cross-border Cooperation Programme Poland-Belarus-Ukraine 2007-2013 the Joint Technical Secretariat would kindly remind that all contracts within the projects must correspond to the competitiveness principle. Therefore the following provisions shall apply: