EU regions have developed different policies to provide support to SMEs when participating in projects funded by multilateral donors. However, performance of SMEs is different among regions as confirmed by different studies (DG Enterprise, DG Internal Market) on SMEs access to EU public procurement. Actually this field remains slightly spread among EU SMEs. On the other side, mention is to be made to two initiatives to increase the participation of SMEs in EU tenders: the Small Business Act and a directive proposal. Moreover, since January '06 any company from a non - EU member state (based on specific EU bilateral agreements) is allowed to participate in EU public procurement, thus increasing competition. Therefore and due to all the before mentioned circumstantces, there is a need to better prepare EU SMEs. The overall objective is to increase the competitiveness of EU regions - SMEs in the field of participation in EU tendering systems (incl Structural Funds) (innovative field).To this end, a medium level cooperation through a balanced partnership of 11 gathering regions from NMS (Bulg, Cz R, Hung, Pol, Rom) and EU15 (Dk, Fr, It, Pt, Sp) is proposed. This approach will also help NMS regions to learn about past mistakes by EU15 states in managing EU Structural Funds. Project activities have been jointly designed and set in a plan involving an active cooperation among all partners aimed at improving capacities and knowledge, thus narrowing the existing gap among strategies actually implemented by them. Outlined activities are: Communication plan, interregional benchmarking research, Joint Working Plan, Joint conferences, Joint thematic seminars, Study visits, Site visits, Staff exchanges, Joint interregional training sessions, Joint thematic surveys, Best practices guides and pilot actions. The environment sector will be given a specific focus. Project activities and results will be spread through different means following publicity requirements.As a result, the project will contribute to increase the competitiveness of EU SMEs and to achieve the EU strategies for growth, jobs and sustainable development. Key results are: regional policies improved based on internationalisation of SMEs, regional mechanisms innovated to promote efficiently and effectively the participation of SMEs in public procurement, regional stakeholders with capacities and know-how improved to support SMEs raising their success in public procurements, networking increased among less experienced and more experienced regions. Finally, the main project outputs are: 3 Joint conferences, 1 Communication Plan, 33 Regional Dissemination events, 1 Website and 1 Intranet, 5 newsletters, 1 joint brochure, 7 Press releases, 1 Working Plan, 1 Interregional Benchmarking Research, 3 guides created, 6 Joint Thematic Seminars, 3 Study Visits, 3 Site Visits, 3 Staff Exchange, 3 Joint region training sessions, 3 Joint thematic surveys, 3 pilot actions. Achievements: EuroPROC is an innovative project that tackles the access of SMEs to International Public procurement (IPP) markets. Since the beginning, euroPROC partners have concentrated their efforts on the main activities of the Component 3, that's Exchange of Experiences dedicated to the identification and analysis of Good Practices: - From Feb to Dec. 2009, a benchmarking research on IPP support by EU regional agencies to their SMEs was performed among more than 630 institutions, most of them EEN members (with official support of the EACI). Amongst the 38 surveys and more than 96 services/instruments collected, LP and P2 have identified the 17 awarded services which are described within a Guide published in June’10. - This Guide of Good Practices has been published electronically on the project website: http://www.europroc.eu/en/deliverables/good-practices/4/ and it’ll be disseminated in the forthcoming months. The aim of this guide is to provide a source of inspiration for those BSO planning to take further steps into providing the SMEs with services on IPP business opportunities. - In 2010, were organised 2 Pilot Actions (PA), involving all the partners. The main object of the PA is to improve the capacity of the partners and give them a clear path on what to do next in their plan to develop an enhanced SME support service on the subject of IPP. The 1st PA was a 3-day “Training for Trainers” session held in Bucharest in May’10. This activity, organized by ACC1Ó, LP, and held by ADRBI, aimed at enabling the project partners’ staff (28 participants) to provide a training session on how to be bid ready to its SMEs. The 2nd PA was a Prospection Mission on the Green Public Procurement (GPP) in Denmark and the United Nations Market Place. This action aimed at rising awareness of Danish PP, since Denmark is a leading Country in GPP (Green 7). Several activities were organised as workshops and study visits with the City of Copenhagen, the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the Nordic Council (GPP) and the EU Environmental Agency. We also took the opportunity of this Mission to learn about UN PP procedures by visiting the PP Support Offices in Europe, namely UNPD, UNICEF and UNOPS. This activity wasn’t only designed for the project partners but also open to those SMEs interested in prospecting these markets. Actually, 3 companies had individual meetings with the buyers. - After the several activities (site & study visits, seminars, Staff Exchanges, Training course) organised in 2009 by EuroPROC project partners in Barcelona (Spain, twice), Katowice (Poland, May’09), and Brussels (Oct’09), other many activities were held in Budapest in Feb 2010: Site visits with the Nat Ass of Official PP Advisors, the Nat. Dvpt Agency (HU) and Transparency Intl HU; a 4th Seminar on IPP, a Staff Exchange with the ITD staff and, finally, a Study Visit with the HU PP Council in order to Exchange Experiences. -Thanks to these activities, synergies between some EC DGs, Agencies (EACI), Programmes (INTERREG IV-b/c Projects), and International Organisations with euroProc objectives aroused. In particular, DG ENTR, DG MARKT, DG ENV, DG REGIO, DG INFSO, EACI-EEN, EU co-financed projects; and UN agencies showed a vivid interest in the Guide of Good Practices. Concerning other activities carried out by the project, its worth to be mentioned that the partners have made their best to accomplish the objectives set in the application form and stressed by the Steering Committee: - 3rd Newsletter (June 10) on the Guide of Good Practices. 2.194 copies of the 3 newsletters have been disseminated. - 19 Dissemination events organized (with 1.047 participants) and contribution in other 19 events - 58 Press releases disseminated to press and medias (77 articles published) - 2.194 copies of the Brochure (English +10 official languages) disseminated - Project’s website (www.europroc.eu) and intranet are active since June’09 (296 unique visitors/month)