A4-0167/97

Resolution on the Commission's annual report on the Cohesion Fund 1995 (COM(96)0388 - C4-0509/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission's annual report, COM(96)0388 - C4-0509/96,

- having regard to its resolutions of 29 June 1995 on the annual report of the Commission on the cohesion financial instrument ((OJ C 183, 17.7.1995, p. 36.)) and 19 April 1996 on complement to the Commission's annual report on the Cohesion Fund (1994) ((OJ C 141, 13.5.1996, p. 265.)),

- having regard to the annual report of the Court of Auditors for 1995,

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Regional Policy and the opinions of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Budgets (A4-0167/97),

A. whereas budgetary implementation of the Cohesion Fund for 1995 was 99.9% for commitment appropriations and 97.1% for payment appropriations; whereas the corresponding figures for the budget as a whole in 1995 were 92.80% and 87% respectively and 91.24% and 80.16% respectively for the structural funds as a whole,

B. whereas the balance achieved in 1995 between the two areas of Cohesion Fund assistance - environment and trans-European transport networks - was 48.48% and 51.52% respectively of total funding, although in these two areas some differences still exist in the cohesion countries, and although the Commission's report still does not contain an overall statement of the environmental impact and contribution to sustainable development of infrastructure measures in these two areas,

C. whereas these figures confirm that Cohesion Fund aid is concentrated on the environment, in application of Community legislation on drinking water supply, waste water treatment and, to a lesser extent, sewage and urban waste; whereas schemes of this kind accounted for 99.7% of aid in Ireland, 95% in Portugal, 94% in Greece, but only 65.23% in Spain,

D. whereas in the trans-European transport networks sector, a disproportionate amount of aid continues to be concentrated on roads, which absorb 75.2% of the total, while funding for railways is small and funding for ports at 6.1% and airports at 2.1% has been virtually overlooked,

E. whereas the Cohesion Fund's essential purpose is to contribute to economic and social cohesion, i.e. the fight against social and territorial disparities; whereas these disparities continue to increase within the beneficiary Member States,

F. whereas the Cohesion Fund is also intended to support the budgetary efforts of the beneficiary Member States to meet the nominal convergence criteria for the single currency, and for that reason, is subject to a conditionality clause,

G. whereas Article 6 of the Regulation establishing a Cohesion Fund suffers from a certain vagueness with regard to the conditions for applying the conditionality clause; whereas although the Commission approved the rules on the application of this clause on 20 December 1995, they have neither been forwarded to Parliament nor been published,

H. whereas this is the first annual report which seeks to provide data on the impact of the Cohesion Fund on employment but whereas the Commission itself acknowledges that the figures put forward are rather pointless and unreliable,

I. whereas the Dublin European Council adopted the Stability Pact, which maintains the requirement of a high level of macroeconomic rigour following monetary union,

J. whereas the cohesion countries have complied with the conditionality clause and made considerable progress towards the convergence targets,

1. Deems the budgetary implementation of the Cohesion Fund for 1995 satisfactory and welcomes the progress made towards achieving an overall balance between the Fund's two areas of assistance, i.e. environment and trans-European transport networks; reiterates, however, the need to rectify certain national imbalances adversely affecting in particular the transport sector in Greece and the environmental sector in Portugal;

2. Welcomes the improved reporting system, and would be pleased to see the Commission displaying the same thoroughness in managing and implementing the Structural Funds;

3. Reasserts its belief that the goal of balanced funding for the two areas of assistance should be attained over the whole of the six-year lifetime of the Fund in each beneficiary Member State, and should be interpreted as a flexible rule;

4. Notes that in 1995 the Commission discovered no fraud in connection with the projects financed by the Cohesion Fund, and merely detected some administrative and procedure irregularities;

5. Reiterates its support for the Commission's declared strategy of boosting the concentration of aid in the environment sector to reflect the European Directives on drinking water supply, waste water treatment and sewage and urban waste; believes that more effort must be made to fund projects reflecting this strategy in Spain; acknowledges, nevertheless, that other environmental projects might be accepted (for example, to combat erosion and desertification and support reafforestation) and also stresses the need to place greater emphasis on sewage treatment measures;

6. Believes that the term 'environment¨ is interpreted too loosely by the Member States and the Commission with the result that projects concerned with fighting erosion, afforestation, nature conservation and the protection of habitats receive insufficient attention; calls for support to be given to projects implementing the habitats Directive and the Nature 2000 network;

7. Considers that the Commission should encourage further projects to prevent pollution from industrial sources and develop modern waste disposal, treatment and management systems in regions where these are currently inadequate;

8. Calls on the Commission to use its influence to ensure that in future the number of measures to prevent environmental pollution and promote environmental consultation is more adequate;

9. Regrets the excessive weight given to road funding within the trans-European transport networks sector, and believes that an imbalance on this scale flies in the face of the objective of embodying the environmental dimension in Community transport policy; calls therefore on the Commission and the beneficiary Member States to pay greater heed to less environmentally harmful modes of transport by increasing the funding earmarked for railways, ports and airports;

10. Recalls that sea and air transport are particularly important for more remote regions, and observes with concern how these areas, and particularly the ultra-peripheral regions, are receiving little and sometimes no attention in the application of the Cohesion Fund, despite the fact that Article 129b of the EC Treaty, on the establishment of trans-European transport networks, lays down that they are a priority;

11. Endorses the flexibility displayed by the Commission in approving certain projects of under ECU 10 million, in so far as this attitude could enable Cohesion Fund investment levels in projects for less-developed and ultra- peripheral regions in the beneficiary Member States to be increased, thus avoiding an excessive concentration of aid in the most prosperous regions, since the latter approach may have contributed to aggravating internal disparities within the Cohesion Fund beneficiary countries;

12. Considers that, although the Commission prefers, for management reasons, a few large projects to a lot of little ones, it is preferable to devote attention to both sorts of projects because:

(a) by their very nature environmental projects are often on a small scale;

(b) small projects are easier for people to recognize;

(c) these projects often have a good cost/benefit ratio, although the benefits are not always quantifiable;

13. Recognizes and reaffirms that the Cohesion Fund is not aimed at regional development but calls once again on the Commission to provide information on the funding of projects in Objective 1 regions in Spain, the sole beneficiary state whose territory is not entirely covered by this objective;

14. Believes that, in view of the increase in internal regional disparities noted in the beneficiary states, any impact which the method of implementation of the Cohesion Fund may have on these disparities should be investigated as part of the Commission's efforts to assess the socio- economic impact of the Fund;

15. Reminds the Commission that, pursuant to Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) 1164/94 establishing a Cohesion Fund ((OJ L 130, 25.5.1994, p.1.)), the GDP-based eligibility criterion were due to be reviewed in 1996, and asks to be informed of the result of the assessment in question;

16. Stresses that the Commission has still not answered its request for information concerning the rules it has adopted with regard to the application of the conditionality clause; states once again its conviction that this clause should, in any case, be applied in terms which reflect the fundamental objective of the Fund, which is to achieve cohesion, and calls on the Commission to forward these rules immediately to Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy;

17. Reaffirms that the Cohesion Fund is a financial instrument for implementation at national level which was set up to promote economic and social cohesion for countries with a per capita GDP lower than 90% of the Community average and that it is also designed to support the convergence measures undertaken by these countries; considers, therefore, that all these criteria must be preserved when analysing the situation of the Member States and determining the aid to be provided as part of the necessary reform of the Cohesion Fund;

18. Calls on the Commission and Council to guarantee that a Cohesion Fund will continue after 1999;

19. Welcomes the fact that throughout 1995 the monitoring committees have been active, and welcomes the participation in these committees of the regional and local authorities, although it notes that some of these regional authorities are unelected; believes that it is necessary, however, to improve the conditions governing such participation in order to make it more effective and, to this end, takes a positive view of the setting up of ad hoc monitoring committees on a project-by-project basis;

20. Reaffirms furthermore the need to continue to insist on a more active policy on publicizing the Cohesion Fund and its objectives, both amongst the population at large and amongst potential users in the beneficiary states;

21. Recommends that the Commission consider the possibility of involvement by the private sector;

22. Welcomes the Commission's action with regard to carrying out an assessment of the socio-economic impact of assistance financed by the Cohesion Fund, and wishes to see the study commissioned from the London School of Economics and Political Science as soon as it is finished; is aware, however, that the Cohesion Fund does not have the explicit purpose of creating jobs, and that the data presented by the Commission on job creation should not be interpreted as the Fund's net impact on employment, but believes that this assessment of the social and economic effects of the Cohesion Fund is nonetheless important;

23. Takes the view that environmental impact reports should be drawn up by research workers who are involved neither in the planning nor in the implementation of projects, and that this principle should also apply to all European projects, not merely to the Cohesion Fund;

24. Calls on the Commission to arrange for an independent agency to investigate to what extent the expenditure of appropriations from the Cohesion Fund is consistent with the environmental objectives of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, with particular regard to sustainable development, and to test whether they make a significant contribution towards implementing Community environmental legislation;

25. Believes that, despite the improvements noted in 1995 with regard to the operation of the Fund, especially in terms of progress made in cooperating with other financial bodies and in assessing and monitoring projects, it is absolutely essential that the processing of requests be streamlined, by cutting the deadlines for Commission replies, which often exceed the three months laid down in the Cohesion Fund regulation, and by improving the level of communication with the relevant national administrations, above all with a view to facilitating the submission of complete and correctly drawn up applications which will put an end to irregularities of any kind by pre- empting them;

26. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.