Brussels, 30/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 30 November the European Commission said it was “perfectly normal” for a large proportion of EU funding under the cohesion policy to not yet have been spent. According to reports in the Financial Times on the same day, the EU has only spent 10% of the €347 billion allocated to encourage the development of poor regions in 2007-2013.
A Commission spokesperson, Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen, said that there was nothing new about a slow start to the beginning of a funding period, as it happened quite often. The current EU funding cycle is for 2007-2013, but until last year, the member states were still spending cash from the previous funding period (2000-2006), she explained, pointing out that if there is no money for co-funding, then the Commission does not require payment for the member states and therefore the money sits in their accounts. There is not a European bank account with dormant funds accumulating in it, she added.
Ahrenkilde-Hansen admitted that fraud and improper spending did occur, describing this as regrettable, but the error rate was halved in 2009 to around 5%, with only 2% of errors being caused by fraud.
A different European Commission spokesperson explained that the money is spent in waves and it was vital for the cash to arrive in the regions on a regular basis. Sometimes there are problems because projects start later and in accounting terms, it is often a case of n+2 or n+3. There are also payments spread out over various stages.
Payments have already been made and 56% of funding is directly connected with programmes, explained the second spokesperson, adding that a third of cohesion policy cash has already been committed and allocated to projects. Some 94.7% of the €129.5bn allocated to the ERDF for 2000-2006 has been spent, funding 379 projects. The remaining 5% will be paid out at the end of the financial year, explains a Commission document. The ERDF has been allocated €198.7bn for 316 projects in 2007-2013. Of this, €111.8bn has been allocated and €39.18bn (19.71%) paid out in 2010, adds the Commission. The situation varies from one country to another. The United Kingdom has received 18.13% of the €3.2bn granted to it, France 20.42% of the € 4.4bn granted to it and Belgium 25.88% of the €662 million granted. Only 10% of the allocated European Social Fund cash has been paid out so far, but the Commission explains that one has to wait here for the end of the financial year. (L.C./transl.fl)