Brussels, 21/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - In a conclusions document adopted on Monday 21 February, the EU Council of Ministers welcomes a European Court of Auditors' report noting that EU spending has helped improve domestic water supplies and that measurable progress has been made in increasing the amount of water available, the size of the public water supply network, improving water purity, network output and continuity of supply. The Council also notes the Court of Auditors' comment, however, that better outcomes could have been obtained at a lower cost for the EU budget.
Last year, the Court of Auditors published a special report (9/2010) on the effectiveness of Cohesion Policy aid in extending domestic water supply infrastructure, examining the situation in the 2000-2006 programming period. The Council points out that the Court of Auditor's main comments have already been incorporated for the selection and operation of programmes in the 2007-2013 period.
The Council of Ministers notes the changes made to the current programming period as regards big programmes and projects likely to generate income in order to facilitate the implementation of the 2007-2013 programmes. It welcomes the fact that the Commission has provided technical assistance to the member states for the planning of large projects to be submitted to the Commission under the JASPERS system and calls on the Commission to take better account of the work carried out under JASPERS to speed up and simplify the approval of big projects. The Council acknowledges that the sheer complexity of large projects can lead to a surpassing of planned costs and deadlines and that extra work is needed to reduce the negative impact on these surcharges and delays and ensure that such complex infrastructure projects are properly implemented. In the conclusions document, the Council asks the Commission to simplify the process of setting aid rates in order to ensure a better monitoring of payment deficits for large water projects and urges the member states to continue to design better and more efficient programmes. (L.C./transl.fl)