Brussels, 28/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The funding of the European Commission's external aid programmes reached "historic summits" in 1999, said the spokesperson for the Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, on Friday. According to a report from the joint service for external relations (JSR), handed to the European Parliament's Budgetary Committee last week, the Commission committed EUR 7.9 billion to cooperation in 1999 and disbursed 4.9 bn, against respectively 7.4 billion and 4.7 billion in 1998. Between 1990 and 1999, the sums committed increased by 183% and sums paid out by 100%, says the spokesperson. In 1999, the JSR managed 11,640 projects and 16,448 contracts. The spokesperson stipulates that "thanks to improvements in the management, more was able to be disbursed to beneficiary bodies over the past few years".
Whereas the JSR has only been operational for a year, the Commission is preparing to again reshuffle the management of its external programmes. Discussions along these lines have begun between the Commissioners responsible for the different aspects of external relations, Chris Patten, Pascal Lamy, Poul Nielson and Gunter Verheugen, in the framework of the reform of the Commission.
The aim of the JSR, partly fulfilled, was initially to reduce the timespan between the definition of projects and the actual disbursement of funds to the beneficiaries. Control procedures, however, remain the same on the whole. In addition, the separation brought in between the services responsible for elaboration of the policy of the projects and those of the JSR, responsible for their financial management, has often slowed down procedures instead simplifying them, note sources close to the issue. Thus, the plan is for the first reform to be a revision of the "project cycle" that would avoid the multiplication of visas necessary and the de-responsabilisation of the officials in charge of the cases. The revision of the cycle should reduce by 50% the timeframe between the conception of the project and its actual implementation, Commission sources hope.
In the medium-term, the services for external relations (development, Asia, Latin America, Mediterranean, etc.) could possibly merge. Those geographically responsible would focus on defining the political priorities of cooperation. The concrete drawing up and monitoring of the projects would then be assumed by another service.
The European administration also maintains that the number of its personnel does not enable it to correctly manage the increasing amount of funding and programmes that are becoming increasingly more numerous. In the framework of their discussions, that should lead to a report end-March/early April, the Commissioners are studying the possibility of "externalizing" project management, either in the form of agency, based on the model of the agency for reconstruction, based in Thessaloniki, or in the form of an office like Echo for humanitarian assistance or the veterinary office. For the Commission, the office would have the advantage of remaining under its control. The reform would also allow to employ experts in development from the operational funds earmarked for the projects, which the current procedures of the European administration do not allow for. However, cases of mismanagement, fraud even, in the technical assistance offices denounced last year by the European Parliament and independent Committees of Experts suggest caution.
Other than externalization, the second path of discussion concerns a recurrent subject in the Commission: the deconcentration of project management to Commission delegations in beneficiary States. The personnel of these delegations would however need strengthening in that case. Whatever, all these reforms should not achieve results before two years. Meanwhile the JSR should be maintained with additional staff and manage at least half of current affairs.
To take on this problem of the daily management of increasingly sophisticated programmes, the Commission recently decided to freeze the programme of loans to the formation of joint-ventures with developing countries ECIP (EC Investment Partners). An audit report from Deloitte&Touche, published in December 1999, referred to the very positive results of this programme that has funded 34,000 companies and allowed for the creation of 1,300 joint ventures in ten years. The company did, however highlight the fact that the Commission's management procedures were inadapted to the economic reality of SMEs beneficiaries of the aid. The legal basis of the ECIP being moreover null and void, the Commission has proposed to the Council and European Parliament approving a regulation that would allow for ongoing projects to be financed and completed. Meanwhile, no new project will be approved and the administration will proceed with a long-term redefinition of the goals and execution of the ECIP. Here too externalization could be contemplated. Someone close to the issue says that "it is clear that the European administration does not have the resources to manage loans programmes that are normally the competence of financial experts in institutions like the World Bank or the EIB".