Brussels, 15/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Philippe Maystadt, and Secretary General of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Horst Reichenbach opened the new regional office for the JASPERS facility in Warsaw on Friday 12 January (see EUROPE 9341).
The opening of the Warsaw office is recognition that the new facility will work most effectively with its staff based close to the authorities responsible for the day-to-day management of European programmes and projects. The Warsaw regional office is the first of three regional offices for JASPERS to be established in Central and Eastern Europe. The two others will be in Vienna and Bucharest and are due to open in the coming months, according to a Commission press release. The Warsaw office will accommodate experts from various disciplines - engineers, economists and financial specialists - who, together with support staff, will help the authorities in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania prepare major investment projects which will be supported by European Union funds from January 2007 onwards, the Commission continues. For the period 2007-2013, Poland could receive up to €67.3 billion from EU funds, Estonia €3.5 billion, Latvia €4.6 billion and Lithuania €6.9 billion.
The Warsaw team will be strengthened by experts from the European Commission, the EIB and the EBRD. The experts in the Warsaw office have already begun work on action plans agreed with national authorities, covering a wide range of investments including road and rail projects, environmental protection, urban public transport and energy projects. The expert team will also provide advice on financing mechanisms, such as public-private partnerships. Assistance from JASPERS will be provided free of charge to beneficiaries. For further information, go to http: //ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_en.htm
During the opening ceremony, Danuta Hübner declared that this European investment programme was on “an unprecedented scale”, which will therefore be implemented by Member States and regions over the next few years. She explained that, “This is a tremendous opportunity to boost growth, create jobs, and improve the competitiveness of the Union as a whole. But it is also a major challenge. By creating the JASPERS instrument, and by pooling the resources and expertise of the European Commission, the EIB and the EBRD, we are convinced that we can help the authorities to develop major projects of the highest quality”. President Philippe Maystadt stressed that, “Support to projects in the less developed regions has been the EIB's major priority since its establishment in 1958”. He welcomed the fact that , “JASPERS provides the Bank with another possibility to share its expertise in cooperation with the Commission and the EBRD for the benefit of the Member States that joined the Union in 2004 and 2007”. Horst Reichenbach affirmed that the EBRD, “is focusing its contribution to JASPERS on areas in which it has particular expertise, including municipal infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewables, and public-private-partnership projects”. (gb)