Having in view the provisions of art. 7 Rights and duties of the parties, paragraph 17, section Managing Authority of the subsidy contract, and art. 7 Rights and duties of the parties, paragraph 11, section Managing Authority of the co-financing contract,
In the context of the current outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the pandemic was declared on 11th of March 2020 by the World Health Organization, thus recommended actions related to the measures that restrict the movement of people during this outbreak, movement that should be proportionate to the public health risk, short in duration and reviewed regularly as more information about the virus, the disease epidemiology and clinical characteristics becomes available,
Taking into consideration the preventive measures recommended by both Romanian and Serbian Governments regarding the presence and transmission of the new type of coronavirus among the population, as well as the announcement of positive COVID-19-test results in the eligible area of the Romania-Serbia Programme (Timis, Caras Severin – Romania and Serbia), and considering that Serbia closed its borders on 10th of March 2020 for travellers from countries most affected by the coronavirus outbreak,
Considering that the following border crossing points between Serbia and Romania have been closed from 12th of March 2020, 7.00 am, Serbian time, 8.00 am, Romanian time, for an unspecified time period:
– road BCP Vrbica – Valcani,
– road BCP Nakovo – Long,
– road BCP Jasa Tomic – Foeni,
– road BCP Kaludjerovo – Naidas,
– naval & road BCP / Golubac – Moldova Noua,
– naval BCP Kladovo – Drobeta Turnu Severin,
– road BCP Kusjak – Iron Gates II.
And the necessity to activate coordination mechanisms as early as possible and well before community transmission of COVID-19 occurs widely,
the Managing Authority issues the following:
INFORMATION FOR BENEFICIARIES
Article 1. Having in mind the preventive health measures recommended by both national governments in relation to COVID-19, the Programme management structures reiterate the importance of Programme beneficiaries taking precautionary measures, such as restricting the movement of people during this outbreak or replacing events, when possible, with virtual meetings (an actual meeting can be replaced by a virtual meeting with a notification).
In this respect, when the COVID-19 situation is deeply affecting your project implementation, we strongly recommend you to take appropriate measures such as reviewing the planned project activities/events to see what activities/events can be postponed to a later date.
In order to help you better organize your project activities, we provide you a risk assessment criterion developed by the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs based on the evolving situation and needs (the risk assessment criteria are attached to the Information). Please consider these criteria when organizing meetings or events.
When Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has any negative effects on your project activities or the events, meetings, workshops, seminars cannot take place in compliance with the project activities mentioned in the application form, and the project results and outputs are not achieved according to originally planned in the application form, the Lead beneficiary may make use of the contractual provisions available for such situations. (e.g. for a change of the implementation calendar of activities, extension of implementation period of the project, the suspension of the implementation period, etc.)
If project partners cannot, due to justified circumstances, take the above-mentioned measures, the partners may ask the reimbursement of expenditures incurred in accordance, even if the activities that has generated the expenditure were not implemented (e.g. hotel bills, travel tickets for the cancelled events due to COVID-19).
Our priority is well-being and safety of all of you and that is why we provide this information to immediately support Programme beneficiaries to prepare for and respond to the evolving position regarding COVID‑19 in order to prevent and combat the illness.