Brussels, 14/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 September, the European Parliament's Budget Committee examined a working document by Kyosti Virrankosi (ALDE, Finland) and Natalia Griesbeck (ADLE, France) on serious delays by the European Commission in implementing payments of the following Structural Funds - the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund (ESF), rural development funds and the European Fisheries Fund (EFF). The document focuses on the 2000-2006 period and a few new programmes implemented in the first few months of 2007. The document aims to help the Budgets Committee prepare for the European Parliament's first reading of the draft budget for 2008.
In a press release, Natalia Griesbeck expresses grave concern about the outstanding commitments (backlog of payments, known in EU jargon as RAL), which stood at €92.69 billion as at 5 July 2007 (including more than €65 million for Objective 1 (convergence) projects). The current RAL is therefore the equivalent of three years of commitments but it is only supposed to amount to a maximum of two years' commitments. In 2006, Italy and Spain recorded the beigest RAL, followed by Greece and Germany. RAL dating back to before 2000 is negligible for all countries. In relative terms, the RAL is highest for programmes for the 10 countries which joined the EU in May 2004 (standing at more than 50% compared with a less than 10% rise in RAL for the 'old' EU15).
The working document authors urge the European Commission to speed up its validation of National Strategic Reference Frameworks and Operational Programmes for the ERDF and ESF, with particular attention to rural development programmes and support for fishing and fish farming (the EFF).
Griesbeck also raised the question of the abnormal concentration of request for commitment and payment appropriations in the last quarter, often well after the 31 October deadline. (lc)