EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/837

(2004/C 78 E/0891)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3630/03

by Carles-Alfred Gasòliba i Böhm (ELDR) to the Commission

(5 December 2003)

Subject: Unspent Structural Fund resources

The preliminary draft amending budget No 7 to the 2003 budget, submitted by the Commission (1) establishes a considerable total of resources to be returned to the Budgetary Authority in the pre-2000 period, due to the low uptake of the Structural Funds: no less than EUR 5 000 million. This Community ‘saving’ will be allocated between the Member States in terms of their revenue contributions.

What are the Commission estimates for unused Structural Fund resources pre-2000 by Member State and by Fund?

Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission

(10 February 2004)

The amending Budget presented by the Commission on 29 October 2003 (2) and adopted by the budgetary authority was a response to the Court of Auditors, which stresses in its report on the 2002 financial year the necessity for the Commission to bring available appropriations into line with actual needs as soon as it becomes aware that there is a risk of underutilisation.

Although the Member States had estimated that the payment appropriations for 2003 should cover almost all the remainder still to be paid in respect of the 1994-99 programmes, the closure files were not sent to the Commission until 31 March 2003 — the cut-off date stipulated by the Regulation — and were often incomplete. Concern to maintain the quality of the requisite controls at the time of closure consequently led to identification of that underutilisation risk.

The adoption of that amending budget in the course of operations, which indicates progress in steering implementation, did not prevent reducing the remainder still to be paid in respect of 1994-1999 from 15,6 billion to 9 billion in 2003, a reduction of 41 %.

The estimate of funding which would ultimately remain unutilised by the Member States in respect of all the 1994-1999 programmes is still very provisional and may still change significantly. Indeed, while some partial or final closures have already given rise to recoveries or decommitments, the total amount of unutilised funding will not be known until after all the programmes have been finally closed and the requisite adversarial procedures completed in the event of financial corrections.

The following table gives an estimate, by Fund and Member State, of resources which might not be utilised in respect of 1994-1999 programmes for Objectives 1 to 6 and for the Community Initiatives. The figures correspond to projects which could not be finished or which ultimately cost less than forecast. They include the financial corrections made by the Commission, e.g. in cases of ineligible expenditure, and may change in the light of any financial corrections still to come.

Country EAGGF FIFG ERDF ESF Total Belgium 19 3 145 53 220 Denmark 7 13 18 8 46 Germany 92 5 425 213 735 Greece 29 11 440 40 520 Spain 85 29 228 48 390 France 180 27 807 489 1 503 Ireland 3 1 62 268 334 Italy 212 21 432 489 1 154 Luxembourg 2 1 4 3 10 Netherlands 3 15 143 362 523 Austria 18 0 15 16 49 Portugal 31 5 106 49 191 Finland 11 3 36 42 92 Sweden 5 6 44 22 77 United Kingdom 19 9 775 353 1 156 Unspecified 0 0 100 0 100 Total 716 149 3 780 2 455 7 100

These amounts totalling EUR 7,1 billion represent on average 5 % of the 1994-1999 programmes (even less in present value). This means that, 10 years after their launch, the programmes' implementation rate is over 95 %.

(1) SEC(2003) 1111 final, 29 October 2003.

(2) SEC(2003) 1111.