WRITTEN QUESTION E-1500/97 by Pervenche Berès (PSE) to the Commission (30 April 1997)

Subject: Aid programmes

Will the Commission state what proportion of the principal aid programmes goes on paying fees for the drawing up of application dossiers, management dossiers during implementation and validation dossiers?

What is the general profile of the physical or moral persons who receive such fees?

Supplementary answer given by Mr Santer on behalf of the Commission (24 September 1997)

The Honourable Member's question appears to concern the management costs associated with implementation of Community-funded programmes and, in particular, the processing and analysis of applications, the monitoring of implementation, and financial management of commitments and payments.

First, it should be noted that separate arrangements are made for each funded programme. There are no management rules that apply to all the main policy areas. For instance, some funded programmes (e.g. research and technological development, trans-European networks and culture) are implemented by the Commission direct, while others (e.g. technical assistance under the Structural Funds) are implemented in partnership with national or regional authorities. Still others (such as Socrates, Leonardo, Youth for Europe and town-twinning) involve both public and private organisations and agencies. Private organisations are selected by tendering procedure.

The Commission can provide examples showing the costs involved in the implementation of various programmes. For example, at the Commission's initiative, the Structural Funds regulations set ceilings for expenditure on support for technical assistance (technical assistance measures forming part of operations part-financed by the Funds aside). The ceilings are: 0.5% for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF), 1% for the European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and 2% for the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG).

However, the ceilings do not cover exactly the same categories of expenditure. In the case of the EAGGF and the FIFG, they also apply to pilot projects, while the ESF is able to fund industrial-relations measures.

For more information on expenditure on studies and technical assistance funded by the Structural Funds, the Honorary Member can consult Chapter I, point B.2 'Innovative measures and technical assistance' of the 8th Report on the Structural Funds (1996), which is currently going through the adoption procedure.

In 1997, 3% (ECU 11 million) of the ECU 346 million allocation for Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe was spent on the national agencies responsible for implementing the programmes. The Commission spent a further ECU 13 million on the two technical assistance offices. This was charged to Part A of the budget.

Staffing and administrative costs for programmes in the field of research and technological development are capped by the Council Decisions adopting them.

On average, these costs amounted to less than 6% of commitments in 1996. They vary depending on the type of measures contained in the different programmes.

In the case of the enterprise policy, the cost of paying staff to run the assistance office for the Euro-Info Centres amounted to ECU 740 000 in 1996 (around 4.5% of the total budget of ECU 16 million.)