Are costs from agreements between public administrations eligible? How are they recorded and accounted for in the project budget?

Agreements between public administrations are eligible, provided they meet legal requirements (Article 12 of EU Directive No. 2014/24; Article 15 of Law No. 241/90 and Article 5 of Legislative Decree No. 36/2023/Public Procurement Law). The agreement must be in writing and specifically related to the INTERREG project. When preparing the project budget, costs must be fully assigned to the category “Consulting and external services.” For accounting purposes, all specific rules of the program’s eligibility regulations must be observed, including provisions on expenditure categories and simplified options applicable to the agreement’s costs. If real costs are used for reimbursement, the public administration with which the agreement was made must provide a documented cost breakdown to the beneficiary public administration, detailing the nature of the incurred costs in accordance with the various expenditure categories and accounting methods (standard costs, lump sums) of the cooperation program. The beneficiary public administration records the total expenses under the “external services” category and submits the mentioned cost breakdown along with the payment/reimbursement document to the partner public administration. If these costs fall under the lump sum for residual costs, i.e., when the presence of the beneficiary’s internal personnel is required, the beneficiary must, in any case, submit a list of expenses of the public administration with which the agreement was made, detailing the nature of incurred costs according to the different expenditure categories of the cooperation program.