Brussels, 25/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Commissioner for regional policy is expecting a "limited" application of the "n+2" guillotine rule according to which structural fund rules committed in 2001 and which have not been the subject of a request for payment in 2003 will be lost. On Monday in a speech to the regional policy committee at the EP, Michel Barnier indicated in November that 84% of payment appropriations from Objective 1 and 77% from Objective 2 had been used. In he context of cohesion funds, "the gradual execution conforms with what was expected" and for Ispra "it is greater than forecasts". Mr Barnier is expecting a "massive increase in payment requests in the next few days, which is expected to limit the application of n-2".
The Commission is more "worried" about the scrapping of structural fund programmes for the 1994-99 period for which closure procedures are "stagnating". Around EUR 1.4 bn has been released definitively but the examination of a very large number of requests before the date limit of 31 March 2003 is behind schedule. Mr Barnier is putting this down to the fault of Member States which have not sent the required information off quick enough for the Commission to examine the validity of their reimbursement requests. The Commission has also requested the EP and the Council to cancel EUR 5 bn in payment appropriations included in the 2003 budget for concluding the 1994-99 accounts but which were unable to be used this year (EUROPE 30 October p 8).