Brussels, 16/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - Just ten weeks from enlargement, the Commission drew up an intermediary positive report of the Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) on Friday. ISPA was created in 2000 to help the ten candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe to prepare for accession with co-funding of projects in the environment and transport fields. After operating for four years and after approval of 324 projects co-funded for an overall amount of EUR 7 billion, "one has to note that ISPA is a real success", Regional Policy Commissioner Micbel Barnier said on Friday. "ISPA has played a major role in preparing the new Member States for the EU cohesion policy, not only to support specific investments but also to assist the smooth transition to the Cohesion Fund in the acceding countries and to familiarise their administrations with EU procedrues and with the requirements for EU Structural instruments", the Commissioner insisted. Some projects whose launching was decided under ISPA will continue to be implemented in the context of the Cohesion Fund - ISPA's "successor" for Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Commission services are very confident that the four years of "apprenticeship" by acceding countries since ISPA was launched, will allow transition "without major problems" by new member countries towards the Cohesion Fund. The challenge is nonetheless considerable: - from an allocation of "only" EUR 750 million in 2003 under ISPA, , this year will bring the sum of EUR 2.9 billion for the eight new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the context of the Cohesion Fund. "The founders of ISPA were originally greatly inspired by the Cohesion Fund, and it is thought that it should be quite easy to go from one instrument to the other. The success of ISPA allows us to consider that the acceding countries will have the ability needed to propose useful and quality projects, and that they will be able to manage and benefit from the Cohesion Fund in a positive way", the Commission says. It is nonetheless true that the acceding ISPA beneficiary countries should "pursue and even step up their efforts to fine-tune projects that will allow effective absorption of Cohesion Fund funding. This obligation will also fall on Bulgaria and Romania which will not enter the Union in 2004 but which will also benefit from increased financial assistance under ISPA".
As stated above, during the period between 2000 and 2004, the Commission approved 324 projects (211 environmental projects, 102 transport projects, a project for assistance further to the floods that hit the Czech Republic in 2002 and ten different decentralised projects) the total cost of implementation will be EUR 10.7 billion cofunded by ISPA with EUR 7 billion. Of these EUR 7 billion reserved in the ISPA budget for projects already decided between 2000-2004, EUR 4.3 billion were committed, and 1.017 billion effectively paid out. In the transport sector, ISPA contributed to the development of the future trans-European transport network. ISPA also contributed to the funding of environmental projects mainly covering water distribution, the treatment of waste waster and waste management. (For further information on ISPA, consult: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/index_en.htm).