This institutionalisation process ended with the Euregio-Rat in 1978, the first cross-border regional parliamentary assembly in Europe constituted by the political delegates of the member authorities.
In 1985, the separate secretariats were merged into a single Geschäftsstelle, located in Gronau (DE), situated 75m from the border, employing both Dutch and German staff.
On the programmatic side, a ‘regional cross-border action programme’ was presented in 1987, outlining the general strategy for the EUREGIO for a twenty-year period (NEI nd).
A similar solution was found for the 1987 action programme before the EUREGIO succeeded in attracting a substantial amount of European funding under art.
However, the ‘big bang’ for the EUREGIO was the launch of the Interreg I CI in 1989 involving a major push in the EU’s funding for cross-border projects.
This gave the EUREGIO responsibility for the general programme and financial management, including the elaboration of the OP; the collection, evaluation and preliminary approval/rejection of project applications and their submission to the SC; and the co-ordination of the match-funds.
All project proposals are collected by the secretariat where a first preselection is made based on the basis of the EUREGIO’s own criteria, the general Interreg requirements and the prevailing legislation for the territories of the member authorities.
The strict EUREGIO criteria require all projects to have a genuine cross-border character in substantial, organisational, personal and financial respects.
As the relevant agreement states, projects must relate to a ‘Euregional interest’, linked to a structural and socio-economic significance for the region (EUREGIO and Rhein-Ems 1996: 29).
Apart from the EUREGIO representatives, the Committee is composed of senior civil servants representing the following authorities: the Dutch ministry for Economics, and the provinces Drenthe, Overijssel and Gelderland on the Dutch side, and the Ministries of Economics of the German Länder NRW and Lower Saxony as well as the Bezirksregierungen Münster and Weser-Ems on the German side.
For the three Euroregions on its territory, the NRW Land administration has accepted the full and sole responsibility vis-à-vis the European Commission for the lawful implementation of the Interreg OP on behalf of the Dutch central state and Lower Saxony.