Commission bids to slash delays in delivering aid

Date: 20/04/2000

By Simon Taylor

THE European Commission will unveil plans early next month to cut the time it takes to get external aid projects off the ground by half, in response to damning criticism of the bureaucratic delays which have led to a €20-billion backlog of schemes awaiting funding in the past.

The initiative, which will affect nearly €6.5 billion of annual spending, is also aimed at raising awareness of the EU's role in funding overseas schemes by branding all its activities with a new 'Euroaid' tag.

Radical improvements in the Union's record on delivering long-term aid are seen as vital to respond to growing criticism of its performance. "It is in all our interests to tackle the present problems quickly before the deficiencies of the present system create further problems for us all," said External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten and development chief Poul Nielson in a letter to senior MEPs calling for strong political support to introduce the reforms quickly.

The two men will set out their plans in detail in a report due out early next month. The key aim of the proposed changes is to cut the average time between deciding to go ahead with a programme and the first work being done on the ground from three years to 18 months. In the worst cases, the Commission has in the past taken up to five years to get projects up and running.

The draft report sets out planned measures to strengthen the role of the Commission department which administers external aid projects - the Service Commun Relex (SCR), which will probably be renamed 'Euroaid' as part of the drive to give Union-funded projects a higher profile.

To tackle what Patten and Nielson describe as "chronic in-house staff shortages", they will propose increasing the number of officials in the revamped SCR from 650 to 800. Officials point out that the Commission currently has just seven people in India to administer its €100-million aid programme for the country, while the UK government has 200 staff to manage a similar scheme worth only €150 million.

The notorious Technical Assistance Offices which manage EU-funded projects on behalf of the Commission will also be scrapped, in a move designed to meet one of MEPs' key demands. These offices were singled out for criticism in last year's report on the allegations of fraud and mismanagement within the Commission by the committee of wise men, which argued that they were open to abuse because they operated outside the Union's usual controls.

In a bid to simplify the decision-making process within the Commission, where officials currently have to use up to 27 different budget lines to secure funding for projects, the SCR will be given full responsibility for designing, implementing, monitoring and assessing schemes. But some activities will remain outside the SCR's control because of their political sensitivity, including the pre-accession PHARE programme; the EU's humanitarian aid unit ECHO; and human rights, foreign policy and non-governmental organisation funding.

Staff in Commission offices on the ground will be given more responsibility for managing programmes and hiring extra personnel to carry out the work, with a percentage of each project's budget set aside to pay for the additional staff.

German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, welcomed the initiative. "This goes in the right direction because it creates individual responsibility for the financial consequences of decisions," he said. "We have such long decision-making procedures because no one wants to take decisions."

But charity organisations gave a more cautious response. "We are very keen to see major improvements in the quality of the EU aid programme, but we believe that the Commission needs to look at more than just its management systems," said ActionAid's Louise Hilditch.

"It must also clarify its aid objectives."

The European Commission is to unveil plans to cut the time it takes to get external aid projects off the ground by half, in response to damning criticism of the bureaucratic delays which have led to a €20 billion backlog of schemes awaiting funding in the past.