Brussels, 18/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - Presenting the results to the press for structural funds and cohesion instruments for 2004, European Commissioner for regional policy, Danuta Hubner noted that commitments and payments represent the highest amount ever available per year in the history of the Structural Funds. Payment requests by Member States exceeded this time even budgetary resources. This made an additional amount - 2.4 billion EUR which were fully used - necessary to be agreed upon by the Council and the European Parliament. The absorption of the funds by new Member States is well under way, stated the Commissioner's spokesperson Ana-Paula Laissy in a press statement. The Commissioner immediately announced that her message was positive because in terms of finance they had excelled in using available financial resources. She said that 2004 demonstrated that Europe is a small continent and that it was therefore necessary to exploit their potential for growth, competitiveness and employment. The Commissioner added that in 2007-13 it would be essential for continuing their agenda in job creation and growth and that if they wanted to improve the results of the EU economy as a whole, financial incentives were needed in the budget, as well as national action plans and better use of growth and hobs strategies by the regions in Europe. The Commissioner explained that the absorption of about 100% of commitments and payments in 2004 shows that the Structural Funds are well used and that they are necessary for the regional economic development. This is especially true for the new Member States, she added. “In the Member States of EU15 only less than 1% of the commitments made in 2002 had not been used in 2004. Based on mid-term quality assessments of Structural Funds programmes in EU-15, more than EUR 8 billion were allocated to best performing measures in 2004”. Hubner explained. According to the Commissioner 2004 demonstrated how cohesion policy had become one of the definitive driving forces of growth. Ms Hubner concluded that they had made better investments, governance had improved and the principle of partnership had borne fruit. She added that results for 2004 would indicate that cohesion policy would, with greater innovation, help them achieve the Lisbon objectives in an EU of 25 members. In her reply to questions from journalists Hubner explained that:
1) Greece: after the letter sent in December 2004 by the director general of DG Regio, Mr Meadows to the Greek government threatening suspension of the funds for around twelve of the projects, the Commissioner said that they were still awaiting a response at the end of February from Greece justifying progress made for correcting a series of irregularities before suspending he funds;
2) Poland: Ms Hubner said that use of the funds in 2004 had been “very good”. The only concern was that that for the instant there were very few investment projects in the knowledge-based society. Demands for funding that had been retained involved water distribution projects and waste water treatment, as well as motorway intersections. The latter alone accounts for EUR 500 million in investment.