Majority of funds for applicant states are going unspent

Date: 21/02/02

By David Cronin

ONLY one-fifth of EU funding committed to most of the states bidding for EU membership last year was actually spent, European Voice has learned.

While €1 billion was allocated to the 10 applicant countries in central and eastern Europe for 2001, just €200 million was used, a senior European Commission official has confirmed.

A total of €7.2 billion has been allocated for entrant states over a seven-year period to 2006 under the 'IPSA' fund (instrument for structural policies for pre-accession). Poland and Romania are the two largest recipients, with most of the money going to environmental and infrastructure schemes.

Commission sources attribute the delay in spending the cash to bureaucratic hurdles in the projects' preparation stages.

Despite those hiccups, Regional Policy Commissioner Michel Barnier claimed last week that 'the ISPA programme made a big step forward in 2001'. He added, though, that 'candidate countries need to continue efforts to strengthen their administrative capacity to ensure speedy and effective implementation of ISPA projects'.

Barnier was announcing details of 94 new schemes, due to receive slightly more than €1 billion from ISPA. They are aimed at modernising Lithuania's telecommunications system, upgrading sewage-treatment facilities in Estonia, building motorways in Slovakia and repairing railways in Hungary.

Only one-fifth of EU funding committed to most of the states bidding for EU membership in 2001 was actually spent, a senior European Commission official has confirmed.