WRITTEN QUESTION E-2877/02

by Stavros Xarchakos (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(14 October 2002)

Subject: Health and welfare in Greece

Recently there have been several references in the Greek press to problems concerning the progress of the Health and Welfare operational programme, which is managed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare with funding from the third CSF.

It is well known that some of the Health and Welfare operational programme's resources come from the European Social Fund (ESF). Could the Commission give details of exactly which projects funded by the third CSF in the health sector have started in Greece? What amounts (either automatic advance payments or payments made on receipt of applications) have been provided by the ESF (detailed on a project-by-project basis) in the health sector (Axes 1 and 2)? Could the Commission give details of exactly which projects funded by the third CSF in the welfare sector have started in Greece? What amounts (either automatic advance payments or payments made on receipt of applications) have been provided by the ESF (detailed on a project-by-project basis) in the welfare sector (Axis 3)? Could the Commission give details of exactly which projects funded by the third CSF in the supporting measures area have started in Greece? What amounts (either automatic advance payments or payments made on receipt of applications) have been provided by the European Funds (detailed on a project-by-project basis) in this sector (Axes 4 and 5)?

What comments does the Commission have to make on the criticisms made by Mrs Verstraete (European Commission Director-General) during her recent visit to Athens (19 June 2002), when she said that the proposals made by the Greek Ministry of Health and Welfare for projects for 2001 were disturbing? What was the reason for the disagreement between Mrs Verstraete and Mr Sofianos (Secretary-General of the Ministry of Health and Welfare) on 19 June at the second meeting of the monitoring committee in Athens, where Mr Sofianos spoke of investments of EUR 60 million while the Commission represented by Mrs Verstraete did not foresee more than EUR 7,5 million for Greece in 2002 under any circumstances? What are the total amounts of resources utilised by the Health and Welfare operational programme in its two years of operation?

Joint answerto Written Questions E-2876/02 and E-2877/02given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(26 November 2002)

The operational programme Health and social welfare was approved by the Commission on 4 April 2001. Total Community aid comes to EUR 385 million, of which EUR 220 million will come from the European Social Fund (ESF) and EUR 165 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

To date, the Commission has committed EUR 110 million to this programme (EUR 61 million from the ESF and EUR 49 million from the ERDF) and has made an advance payment of EUR 27 million (EUR 15,5 million from the ESF and 11,5 million from the ERDF).

Applications for interim payments submitted to the Commission concern a total amount of EUR 8,8, of which EUR 565 000 has been paid to date by the Commission. The remainder, which is the subject of a recent application, is under examination.

The Commission will send directly to the Honourable Member and the Secretariat-General of the Parliament the list of all the actions taken under the operational programme, broken down by measure and area of focus, as well as the relevant financial information for each fund.

At the meeting of the programme's Monitoring Committee held in Athens on 19 June 2002, there was a debate on how the programme had progressed, during which Mrs Verstratete and Mr Sofianos had an exchange of views on what had been achieved in 2001 and on expenditure forecasts for the programme up to 31 December 2002. The Commission was concerned because, at the time of the meeting, it had not received any application for interim payment possibly reflecting a delay in the implementation

of the programme. Moreover, the Commission was basing its arguments on the implementation forecasts for the period up to 31 December 2002 which had been presented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs a few weeks before the meeting. These forecasts showed a sum of EUR 7,5 million from the ESF for this programme, whereas during the meeting the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Health presented implementation forecasts which were considerably higher and which could amount to EUR 60 million for the programme as a whole.