Brussels, 14/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - Last week, the Commission published its third general report on the working, during the year 2002, of the three pre-accession aid instruments still provided for the acceding and candidate countries. These instruments are: - Phare (aid the adoption and implementation of acquis communautaire); - Ispa (aid to the achievement of vast infrastructure projects in the transport and environment sectors); - and Sapard (aid to the modernisation of agriculture and rural development). The three instruments are programmed on the basis of accession partnerships and national programmes for the adoption of the acquis set in place by the candidate countries themselves. Sapard operates on the basis of a multiannual programme covering the period 2000-2006, whereas Ispa and Phare have an annual programme approved by the Commission at a proposal from the candidate countries.
As far as Phare is concerned, European aid under national programmes reached the total sum of EUR 1.699 billion in 2002 for the ten Central and Eastern European countries concerned, i.e.: Poland (EUR 394 million), Romania (266 million), Bulgaria (95 million), Hungary (112 million), Czech Republic (85 million), Lithuania (62 million), Slovakia (57 million), Slovenia (35 million), Latvia (32 million) and Estonia (30 million). To these national budgets were added special aid for the dismantling of nuclear power plants in some of these countries (EUR 163 million), aid to crossborder cooperation (163 million) and regional and horizontal programmes (260 million).
With regards Ispa, in 2002, the Commission approved 80 new projects (distributed equally between the environment and transport sectors) representing a total eligible cost of EUR 2.4 billion. Community funding of these projects will exceed EUR 1.5 billion, the balance being financed by the beneficiary countries. With the decisions already taken between 2000 and 2002, the Commission approved a total of 249 Ispa projects, for investment equivalent to EUR 8.75 billion, of which the EU will fund 5.65 billion. The Commission has thus already committed nearly 75% of the funds foreseen for the period 2000-2006.
For Sapard, the Commission decided end 2002 to transfer the management of this instrument (for which, unlike the Phare and Ispa programmes, the candidate countries are themselves fully responsible) to the national authorities in all candidate states. The sum of EUR 30.5 million had been transferred to these countries in 2001, and EUR 123.8 million followed in 2002.