EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 84/344

(2004/C 84 E/0402)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0264/04

by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(4 February 2004)

Subject: Community funding for the Greek National Cadastre

Can the Commission indicate the final amount of Community funding for the Greek National Cadastre and the nature of the measures being funded, stating whether funding is being provided solely under the ‘Information Society’ programme and to what extent it intends to provide additional funding in future?

Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission

(12 March 2004)

On 10 February 2003, the Greek authorities submitted to the Commission a proposal for continuing the Land Register in Greece. The outline of a business plan aiming to establish an operational land register by 2013, at a total cost of some EUR 500 million, has been agreed in principle.

In accordance with this revised Greek business plan, the land register project is divided into three modules which can start in parallel but which will be managed as separate groups of deliverables:

— the establishment of a digital database of registered property rights presently recorded on paper in mortgage offices;

— the legal validation of registered rights, in particular to examine claims by the State, and to link property rights clearly to land parcels;

— the preparation and marketing of ancillary products and services.

Since the legal framework determining the circumstances in which the State will claim ownership rights is still under review, co-financing by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is limited to the first module.

It covers the following actions:

— the creation of an Information Technology (IT) infrastructure for the digital registration of existing property rights, and to validate state ownership claims. This comprises a digital map of Greece, where each land parcel can be identified, with its associated rights. It will define the boundaries of areas for which there is a presumption of state ownership (forest lands, coastal strips), as well as of urban areas for which the State has recently renounced its claims relating to their past forest status,

— the digitalisation of existing rights retained by the mortgage offices in the metropolitan areas of Athens and Thessaloniki. This concerns some 12 million property rights out of an estimated total of 33 million property rights in Greece. It should enable a better service for land transactions through decentralised service centres and mortgage offices.

As this is, in practice, an e-government project, it will be financed within the Operational Programme (OP) ‘Information Society’, with the Ktimatologio SA as the final beneficiary. The necessary credits will be assigned to this operational programme in the framework of the mid-term review.

The estimated budget is EUR 110 million and a Community contribution of 50 % (EUR 55 million) is requested. It will be completed by 2006 and only new contracts will be co-financed.

Although this proposal is the basis for an agreement with the Greek authorities, a firm decision for its cofinancing has not yet been taken. First, the OP ‘Information Society’ has to be revised in order to include this project. Secondly, the final beneficiary must submit its proposal to the management authority of that programme for approval. Finally, as this constitutes a major project, an application for confirmation of its co-financing should be submitted to the Commission by the managing authority of the OP ‘Information Society’. The whole procedure is likely to take until the Autumn of 2004.

The Commission does not envisage, at this stage, any further financial contribution to this project. However, it will offer technical assistance for the implementation of the entire business plan from its Joint Research Centre, insofar as this is requested by the Greek authorities.