Brussels, 22/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The proportion of commitment credits available in 2001 for regional policy almost reached 100% explained Commissioner Michel Barnier with pleasure on Thursday to the European Parliament's Regional Policy Committee. As at 31 December 2001, the Commission had budgeted 99.5% of the commitment credits foreseen in the 2001 budget (EUR 26.52 billion) and used 71.3% of the payment credits (EUR 14.82 bil). Three months earlier, on 30 September, 88.2% of the EUR 26.63 bil commitment credits (CC) and 49.8% of the EUR 19.17 bil payment credits (PC) foreseen for 2001 had been used (see EUROPE of 12 October). The clear increase in the use of the funding available in the forth quarter of the year was particularly sharp for Urban and Interreg, following the adoption of a series of programmes under these initiatives at the end of the year.
The figures are better for the Structural Funds (73.1% of CC) than for the Cohesion Funds (restricted to Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland (62.8% of CC) where disappointingly in the Commissioner's view there are still great delays in using funding from the ISPA pre-accession programme (58.1% of PC, but 100 of CC). In detail, for the Structural Funds: Objective 1 (100% of CC and 71% of PC); Objective 2 (100% of CC and 74.8% of PC); Interreg (84.5% of CC and 41.3% of PC); Urban (100% CC and 84.5% PC); Innovative Actions (97.4% CC and 39.2% PC). Commissioner Barnier will examine with the Member States how the budget forecasts are drawn up since there is a huge gap between the forecasts sent in by the Member States and real demand. Mr Barnier noted that the committed credits had to be followed by expenditure within the following two years, otherwise they would be lost.
The Regional Policy Commissioner also addressed the EP's Committee to present the interim Cohesion Report adopted on 30 January 2002 by the Commission. He outlined the main aspects of the report - updating and new figures presented on the development of the EU and candidate country regions, announcement that the Commission will be putting forward proposals at the end of 2003 for the next programming period (see EUROPE of 31 January). The Commissioner was most insistently questioned by MEPs on the last issue, the future of regional policy after 2006. The former Regional Committee President Konstantinos Hadzidakis (EPP, Greece) asked about the criteria used to determine eligibility for EU aid. Helmut Markov (GUE/NGL, Germany) said it was not enough to earmark .0.45% of EU GDP to cohesion policy and it was vital to not renationalise it. The European Parliament recently expressed its views of the second Cohesion Report that the interim report supplements. MEPs mostly support the Commission's views (see EUROPE of 14 February, p.16).