WRITTEN QUESTION No. 945/99 by Honório NOVO Vasco da Gama Bridge, Lisbon: payment of transfers
Date: 1999-04-13
Institutions: European Parliament, NOVO
Subjects: Portugal, co-financing, engineering structure, management audit, transport infrastructure

21.12.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 370/143

(1999/C 370/200)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0945/99

by Honório Novo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

Subject: Vasco da Gama Bridge, Lisbon: payment of transfers

(13 April 1999)

The Vasco da Gama Bridge, co-financed by the Union, has long been completed and already open for
nearly a year.

Given the passage of time, it would be logical to assume that the Commission had already transferred the
full amounts required to pay its share of the costs.

Could the Commission say whether it has paid all of the instalments of funding entailed in its financial
contribution to the works as a whole, including access road networks?

If it has not done so, what fundamental or administrative reasons and/or final assessments lie behind its
failure to act?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission

(6 May 1999)

The balance of Community assistance is the only payment still to be made by the Commission for the new
Tagus bridge project and its access roads, as defined in Decision C (94) 3905.

In addition to the supplementary information which the Commission has already asked the Portuguese
authorities to provide as part of its analysis of the final report on the project, payment of the balance is
also dependent on the Commission’s checking compliance with the clauses in the Decision to grant aid, in
particular those relating to the provisions of Decree-Laws Nos 9/93 and 280/94, referring respectively to
the urban planning of the south bank and the creation of a special protection area for the Tagus estuary.

(1999/C 370/201)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0951/99

by Michael McGowan (PSE) to the Commission

(7 April 1999)

Subject: Structural Funds eligibility

Considering the possibility that in certain Member States pressures may exist that could encourage the
submission of areas proposed for eligibility under the urban ‘Strand’ of the new Objective 2 of Structural
Funds where such areas are discontinuous and very small and noting that such an approach would be:

< very inefficient in the use of administrative resources on the part of the EU and national governments,

< incapable of meeting the economic objectives of

the ERDF under Objective 2 which require
sufficiently large areas to be capable of supporting an economic regeneration programme with, for
example, small factory units, training bases and other infrastructure,

< failing to meet

the social

inclusion objectives of Agenda 2000 by not focusing on the worst

concentrations of deprivation in the major inner city areas,

Will the Commissioner please state how the EU will ensure that, in preparing lists of Objective 2 areas
under the urban Strand, the Member States will put forward areas which are:

< urban in character, i.e. more than 500 residents per sq kilometre,

< ‘substantial’ (as specified in the draft Structural Fund regulation and interpreted as having a population

of more than 100 000),