The law 45/2008 of 27 August, which establishes the legal framework of municipal associations, states in its 5th article as functions of the CIM "participation in management programs supporting regional development, particularly within the framework of  Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional (QREN)", and this text was translated into the Statute of the CIM Alto Minho (article 5).

In this context, the CIM Alto Minho signed a delegation agreement with the overall Management Authority for the Regional Operational Program North 2007-2013, on December 19, 2008, which includes an amount of 78.4 million euros for the period 2007-2013, from the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

The scope of this contract covers the implementation and development of the Territorial Development (briefly known as PTD), a document that consolidates the territorial development strategy for the coming years and their relative priorities for investments by municipalities of the CIM, to be co-financed by european funds, in the programming period 2007-2013 shaped end for the QREN.

As strategic objectives for the Minho-Lima in the forum were defined as follows:

• Promotion of factors of competitiveness, innovation, entrepreneurship and development of the International Energy Agency resources;
• Qualification of community services outreach education and sanitation;
•  Progression of urban mobility and public transport, and improving the accessibility and safety of intra-regional Minho-Lima;
• Improving governance and local government capacity-building for local development, sub-regional and cross.

Under the contract of delegation of skills to ensure Intermunicipal Community, as a body through contratualizante, perform the following powers originating Managing Authority:

• Approve applications for funding under the OP which, combining the conditions of acceptability have adequate merit to receive financial support and to repeal the funding decisions in cases of breach of contract;
• Enjoy the acceptability and merit of applications for funding by the OP, and in particular that operations are selected in accordance with the criteria for PO;
•  Ensure that the conditions necessary for coverage of budgetary operations;
• Organize the application process operations to finance the PO;
• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, especially in the fields of competition, public procurement, state aid, environment and equal opportunities;
• Ensure compliance of loan agreements and the terms of acceptance of transactions supported with the decision to grant funding and compliance with regulatory requirements;
• Verify that the products were provided and funded services;
• Check the eligibility of expenditure, identifying and explaining the nature and amount of the eligible and ineligible provided in applications;
• Ensure that the expenditure declared by beneficiaries for operations has made in complying with Community and national rules and can help achieve verification operations per sample, according to UE rules and national execution, subject to subparagraph e) Clause 13th;
• Ensuring that beneficiaries and other bodies involved in the implementation of operations maintain a separate accounting system or an adequate accounting code for all transactions relating to the operation without prejudice to national accounting rules;
• Ensure the collection and processing of physical, financial and statistical reports on the implementation of the development of indicators for monitoring and evaluation studies of strategic and operational;
• Enter into contracts relating to financing operations approved and monitor the implementation of investments.