Danuta Huebner, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy has announced that the absorption of payments made to new member states from the EU’s structural and cohesion funds in 2007 was excellent.
The new member states received a record 4.3 billion last year, which is the same amount as they spent over the three previous years – 2004, 2005 and 2006 – put together.
The rates of absorption for the ten member states that joined the EU in 2004 reached an average rate of 75%, not far behind the average 84% of the EU15. Rates between the states varied, ranging from 62% for Cyprus and 82% for Hungary. There is a similar variation between the older member states. Ireland has an absorption rate of 91%, but the Netherlands’ is much lower, at 65%.
These results come after a warning from Dalia Grybauskaite, the Budget Commissioner in September last year. She reported that in 2006, 43% of new member states’ structural funds and 78% of their cohesion funds had not been used. Grybauskaite warned then that absorption levels were not satisfactory and that time was running out.
The key aim now is to ensure not only that EU money is being spent, but that it is being well spent. The challenge, according to Huebner, is to ‘keep up that momentum so that economic modernisation, growth and job creation are achieved on the ground.’
Link: Danuta Hübner: Record payments for cohesion policy in 2007; http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/204&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Information provided by Rebecca Steel, TRIALOG Policy Officer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment