The European Commission has committed to strengthening the assessment of the maturity of infrastructure projects in the Western Balkans following the report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), published in June, which highlights shortcomings in the European Union’s financial support for the region’s integration into the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The report points in particular to weaknesses in the selection of transport projects that had not reached a sufficient level of maturity (see EUROPE 13884/21).
“We did indeed find that not all these projects were sufficiently mature […] We must make our assessment of their maturity more rigorous”, explained Gert Jan Koopman, the European Commission’s Director-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG ENEST), during a conference organised on Tuesday 30 June in Luxembourg by the European Court of Auditors on the effectiveness of the Union’s financial instruments in the Western Balkans. He noted that, of the €4.3 billion allocated to key investment projects under the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), €2.9 billion was devoted to transport projects.
Christophe Galand, Head of Unit at DG ENEST, considered that the Commission should “consider” introducing “more automatic” implementation deadlines or the possibility of decommitting European funds allocated to projects that are not progressing, in order to reallocate them “to other projects progressing more quickly”. He nevertheless acknowledged that major infrastructure projects require complex feasibility studies, cost-benefit analyses and social and environmental impact assessments, stages which, in his view, should be accelerated.
North Macedonia’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Zoran Dimitrovski, acknowledged the difficulties linked to institutional capacities, arguing that projects are “far more complex” than they were 10 years ago and now require expertise in areas such as public procurement, environmental standards, digitalisation and climate resilience. He called for long-term technical assistance, rather than support limited to each individual project. He also admitted that unsuccessful calls for tender are a “major” cause of delays and that the process should be improved “through greater competition” and “through greater use of quality criteria”. (Original version in French by Ana Pisonero Hernández)