EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 70/87

(2004/C 70 E/090)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2344/03

by Toine Manders (ELDR) to the Commission

(16 July 2003)

Subject: Interreg bureaucracy

The rules governing Interreg subsidies in the Netherlands include passages which make administration unnecessarily difficult. For example, in order to be eligible for a subsidy it is necessary actually to show proof of payment of all invoices and wage/salary payments. This discourages organisations from applying for subsidies, so that inadequate use is made of the funds potentially available.

In the Netherlands, the procedure for applying for an Interreg BMG (Benelux-Middengebied/Central Benelux Region) subsidy is often seen as enormously cumbersome: merely producing a thorough project plan with defined end products already costs a huge amount. In addition, the administration is of considerable complexity: it is necessary to produce evidence of deployment of manpower, invoices, copies of pay slips and now, as mentioned above, also proof of payment.

This means in practical terms that each month a partner has to check which employees on the pay roll have contributed to the project and must print out a list of them, after which he must submit proof of payment/a copy of the bank statement providing the requisite overview. All this information is computerised and stored on payment diskettes, so that it is relatively easy to retrieve from the system, but it is difficult to print out because the relevant lists are enormously long. In a word, while partners' administrative work and book-keeping are computerised, Europe is still insisting on manually produced evidence/copies.

Moreover, I have found that, as a result of the various national approaches and interpretations, project concepts which would be very suitable are often refused Interreg funding and an unnecessary amount of time is wasted because of inadequate coordination.

1. Is the Commission aware of the bureaucratic complexities involved in applying for Interreg subsidies, an example of which appears above?

2. Do the Interreg subsidy rules in other Member States likewise include such provisions, which promote bureaucracy? If so, what?

3. Will the Commission take measures to put an end to unnecessary bureaucratic procedures involved in the granting of Interreg subsidies? If not, why not? If so, what will it do?

4. Will the Commission investigate the scope for setting up one competent authority per Euregion for the central coordination of Interreg project applications, processing and finalisation?

Supplementary answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission

(18 November 2003)

The Community Initiative, Interreg cofinanced by the European Fund for Regional Development, is governed by Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 of 21 June 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds (1).

In accordance with the rules on financial management, interim payments are made by the Commission in order to reimburse expenditure actually paid and certified by the paying authority. There is no requirement for receipts, invoices or equivalent accounting documents to be sent to the Commission or to the Managing Authority. ‘Moreover, Article 38 (6) allows for the documents which the managing authority keeps available for the Commission to be stored on commonly accepted data carriers.’

For the ‘Grensregio Vlaanderen/Nederland’ covering two sub-programmes for the Euregio Scheldemond and the Benelux-Middengebied, the Province of Antwerpen was designated by Vlaams Gewest as Managing Authority for the programme, the Province of Oost-Vlaanderen as Paying Authority. The programme is supervised by a Monitoring Committee under the chairmanship of the managing authority, which at a meeting held on 16 December 2002, approved the Handboek Administratieve Organisatie which included a description of the management and financial control systems.

While the Commission applies the rules set out in the regulations, it has sought to ensure that, in practice, management is as simple as possible. To this end, the Commission adopted a Communication on the simplification, clarification, coordination and flexible management of structural policies, 2000-2006 (2). The Member States and regions have been urged to make full use of the new provisions and recommendations and to simplify their internal rules and procedures with regard to the management of European programmes.

With regard to the possibility of having one competent authority per Euregion, the Commission must respect the decision on the part of the responsible Member States, Belgium and the Netherlands, to submit, according to point 22 (2) of the Interreg Guidelines, a programme ‘for a border with’ sub-programmes ‘for each cross-border region’. At the same time, it should be noted that the secretariat in Turnhout is the single authority for the central coordination processing and finalisation of Interreg applications as far as the Benelux Middengebied is concerned.

(1) OJ L 161, 26.6.1999.

(2) C(2003)1255 of 25 April 2003.