The Ex Ante Evaluation and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the new Objective 3 programme are well underway. Consultant company ECORYS/ECOTEC and COWI met with the Secretariat on 19 April where a timetable for the tasks was agreed.

The purpose of the Ex Ante Evaluation and the SEA is to appraise the drafting process of the new programme and to inform the strategy development of the programme.

Cornerstones for the work of the consortia are the launch of the public consultation of the Operational Programme (OP) draft at the North Sea Annual Conference in mid June, as well as two consultation periods on the SEA (the first planned for mid June, the second for August), and the submission of the draft OP to the European Commission for informal consultation by the end of July.

Work starts this week when the consultants present themselves to the Programme Preparation Group that meets on 2-3 May in Silkeborg, Denmark.

For more information about the New Objective 3 North Sea Programme, please go to the New Programme section.