WRITTEN QUESTION E-0631/98 by Friedhelm Frischenschlager (ELDR) to the Commission (9 March 1998)

Subject: Women's employment projects in the EU

What are the amounts allocated for 1998 and projected for 1999 of European Commission assistance appropriations (ESF, EAGGF Guarantee and Guidance Sections) for labour-market and employment initiatives? Please specify the different categories (e.g. training, structural improvements, etc).

What percentages of these appropriations will be available specifically for women's employment projects? Please also specify by category.

How many Austrian women's employment projects were submitted to the Commission (DGs V, VI and XVI) in 1996 and 1997?

How does the number of Austrian projects approved compare with the numbers of those approved in other Member States?

How many of the above have been approved, been rejected or are still awaiting assessment?

What were the most common reasons for rejecting Austrian projects?

What is the aggregate amount approved for assistance operations in 1996 and 1997? What were the actual amounts paid out for women's projects?

How long is the average processing time that elapses between a project's submission and its eventual approval or rejection?

What is the average elapsed time between project approval and actual payment of the amounts of financial assistance allocated?

Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission (14 May 1998)

With regard to the Community initiative 'Employment' the following applies.

The New opportunities for women (NOW) strand of the Employment Community initiative foresees a contribution of MECU 496 (1996 prices) for the whole of the Community over the period 1994-1999. NOW focuses on measures which aim at increasing the vocational activity of women, to reduce unemployment and to improve the general situation of employed women in the labour market. In the first round of project implementation approximately 750 NOW projects have been financed in all Member States. In the second round covering the period 1997-1999 nearly 1 000 projects have so far been selected over the whole territory of the Community.

According to the agreed operational programme in the framework of Employment Austria will receive a Community contribution of MECU 5.84 from NOW over the period 1995-1999. For the years 1996, 1998 and 1999, the Community contribution under NOW in Austria is MECU 1.23, 1.29, 1.34 and 1.40, respectively.

In the first round of projects for the period 1995-1997, 16 Austrian NOW projects have been initiated. In the second round 18 NOW projects have been selected to be carried out over the period 1998-1999. The projects have a length of 18 months to 3 years.

The share of the priority 'promotion of equal opportunities of women and men' in objective 3 is approximately 17.5%. Based on this percentage, it is estimated that in 1996 approximately MECU 12.5 were spent for women's projects and in the year 1997, approximately MECU 16.7. Payment of ESF funds is made in instalments to the Treasury in Vienna, and it is therefore not possible to be more precise than this about the actual amounts spent on women's projects on the basis of currently available information. Nor is it possible to make statements about the elapsed time between approval and payment of the money to a certain project.

Generally it is may be said that while in the single programming document for objective 3 for Austria special funds are reserved for 'woman projects' under the priority 'promotion of equal opportunities of women and men', women benefit from all measures in the other priorities (support of employees affected by structural change, integration of long-term unemployed people, older people and people threatened by exclusion, integration of the disabled and promotion of the integration of young people into labour market). The same applies to ESF intervention in objectives 1, 2, 4 and 5b. For example, in the field of qualification and employment measures in 1997 (objective 3) in Austria, more than 50% of the participants were female. Specific 'woman projects' cannot be separately indentified from the other priority axes.

Detailed information concerning the approval, rejection, assessment and payments with regard to individual projects has to be requested from the Austrian authorities, because the Commission does not intervene at the project level.