Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

CHAPTER II Information and communication

Article 115 Information and communication

1. Member States and managing authorities shall be responsible for:

(a) drawing up communication strategies;

(b) ensuring the establishment of a single website or a single website portal providing information on, and access to, all operational programmes in that Member State, including information about the timing of implementation of programming and any related public consultation processes;

(c) informing potential beneficiaries about funding opportunities under operational programmes;

(d) publicising to Union citizens the role and achievements of cohesion policy and of the Funds through information and communication actions on the results and impact of Partnership Agreements, operational programmes and operations.

2. Member States or managing authorities shall, in order to ensure transparency concerning support from the Funds, maintain a list of operations by operational programme and by Fund in a spreadsheet data format, which allows data to be sorted, searched, extracted, compared and easily published on the internet, for instance in CSV or XML format. The list of operations shall be accessible through the single website or the single website portal providing a list and summary of all operational programmes in that Member State.

In order to encourage the use of the list of operations subsequently by the private sector, civil society or national public administration, the website may clearly indicate the applicable licensing rules under which data are published.

The list of operations shall be updated at least every six months.

The minimum information to be set out in the list of operations is laid down in Annex XII.

3. Detailed rules concerning the information and communication measures for the public and information measures for applicants and for beneficiaries are laid down in Annex XII.

4. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts concerning the technical characteristics of information and communication measures for the operation and instructions for creating the emblem and a definition of the standard colours. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 150(3).

Article 116 Communication strategy

1. The Member State or the managing authorities shall draw up a communication strategy for each operational programme. A common communication strategy may be drawn up for several operational programmes. The communication strategy shall take into account the size of the operational programme or programmes concerned, in accordance with the principle of proportionality.

The communication strategy shall include the elements set out in Annex XII.

2. The communication strategy shall be submitted to the monitoring committee for approval in accordance with point (d) of Article 110(2) no later than six months after the adoption of the operational programme or programmes concerned.

Where a common communication strategy is drawn up for several operational programmes and concerns several monitoring committees, the Member State may designate one monitoring committee to be responsible, in consultation with the other relevant monitoring committees, for the approval of the common communication strategy and for the approval of any subsequent amendments of that strategy.

Where necessary, the Member State or managing authorities may amend the communication strategy during the programming period. The amended communication strategy shall be submitted by the managing authority to the monitoring committee for approval in accordance with point (d) of Article 110(2).

3. By way of derogation from the third subparagraph of paragraph 2, the managing authority shall inform the monitoring committee or committees responsible at least once a year on the progress in the implementation of the communication strategy as referred to in point (c) of Article 110(1) and on its analysis of the results as well as on the planned information and communication activities to be carried out in the following year. The monitoring committee shall, if it considers it to be appropriate, give an opinion on the planned activities for the following year.

Article 117 Information and communication officers and their networks

1. Each Member State shall designate an information and communication officer to coordinate information and communication actions in relation to one or more Funds, including relevant programmes under the European territorial cooperation goal, and shall inform the Commission accordingly.

2. The information and communication officer shall be responsible for the coordination of the national network of Fund communicators, where such a network exists, the creation and maintenance of the website or website portal referred to in Annex XII and the provision of an overview of communication measures undertaken at Member State level.

3. Each managing authority shall designate one person to be responsible for information and communication at operational programme level and shall inform the Commission of those designated. Where appropriate, one person may be designated for several operational programmes.

4. Union networks comprising the members designated by the Member States shall be set up by the Commission to ensure exchange of information on the results of the implementation of the communication strategies, the exchange of experience in implementing the information and communication measures, and the exchange of good practices.