Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds (1999)"
Date: 2001-05-30
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: Structural Funds, activity report, gender equality

7.8.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 221/91

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘11th Annual Report on the Structural
Funds (1999)’

(2001/C 221/15)

On 24 and 25 January 2001 the Economic and Social Committee decided, under Rule 23(3) of its Rules
of Procedure, to draw up an opinion on the 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds (1999).

The Section for Economic and Monetary Union and Economic and Social Cohesion, which was
responsible for preparing the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 15 May 2001.
The rapporteur was Mr Burani.

At its 382nd plenary session (meeting of 30 May 2001) the Economic and Social Committee unanimously
adopted the following opinion.

1.

Introduction

In accordance with Article 16 of

1.1.
the Framework
Regulation ((EEC) No. 2052/88) governing the Structural
Funds, the Commission has drafted the 11th report on the
Structural Funds, for 1999.

The report aims to ‘describe how the Structural Funds
1.2.
regulations were implemented during 1999, with a particular
focus on Objectives 1 to 6 and the Community Initiatives’.
The seventh annual report (1995) introduced an innovation
whereby every report is to feature a horizontal theme. The
theme chosen for 1999 was equal opportunities for men and
women.

In addition to a description of major structural policy-
1.3.
related events in the Union during 1999, the report provides a
detailed picture of the key elements for each country using the
funds available for each objective.

1.4.
The document is completed by a series of interesting
chapters evaluating and analysing the Structural Funds, ver-
ifying additionality, looking at coordination with other finan-
cial
instruments, examining compatibility and complemen-
tarity with other Community policies and lastly studying the
dialogue between the institutions and with the economic and
social partners.

2.

The results of the 1994-1999 programming period

2.1.
The 1999 report is especially significant as it is the last
for the 1994-1999 programming period. It is therefore in
essence a final summing up of the use of appropriations during
the period in question, before the entry into force of the new
regulations which were approved on 21 June 1999 and applied
from 2000 onwards.

The final year of the 1994-1999 programming period

2.3.
featured the following results:

— a considerable acceleration in appropriations, as already
noted for the previous two years, with a significant
reduction in the backlogs that had accumulated during
the first part of the period;

— 99 % of the total assistance from the funds for the CSFs
(SPDs) had been committed by the end of the year;

— 75 % of payments were made and payments may

continue to be made until the end of 2001;

— Objectives 1 and 3 performed best, with almost all
available funds committed and 78 % paid; for Objec-
tives 2, 4 and 5b, however, there were considerable
payment backlogs;

— the best rates of implementation were recorded in the
Cohesion Fund countries, while the more prosperous
countries were less efficient;

— the commitment figures for the Community Initiatives
(95 %) were also positive, while those for payments were
less so (57 %).

2.4.
Taking each objective individually, the report high-
lights major differences in backgrounds and results. In 1999,
as in previous years, it was Objective 1 that recorded the best
rates for use of the funds, with 100 % of commitments and
78 % of payments made.

2.2.
A total of 1 134 programmes were set up under the
various objectives (610) and Community Initiative pro-
grammes (524); in 1999 programming was fully implemented,
and for that reason few items of assistance were adopted
during the year.

2.4.1.
The performances of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and
Germany were especially good, with above average rates; the
results for Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,
meanwhile, were less impressive. Italy caught up on most of
its previous backlog, committing 100 % of appropriations, but
it is still behind on payments.

C 221/92

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

7.8.2001

2.5.
There were a few problems with Objective 2, as some
programmes were only adopted at the end of 1997 or even as
late as 1998, and therefore implementation began only in
1999. As a result, the level of payments was lower, at 60 %.

3. General comments

In the case of Objective 3, relating to human resources
2.6.
and the labour market, financial reallocations were made
during the final months of 1999 in order to allocate funds
according to criteria that
tied in more closely with the
objectives of the European Employment Strategy, focusing
for instance on young unemployed people, the long term
unemployed and those threatened with exclusion from the
labour market. Nevertheless, at the end of 1999, Objective 3
recorded commitment and payment rates of 80 %.

As it has already stated in previous years (1),

the
3.1.
Committee does not agree with the Commission’s decision to
simply ‘present’ the report without formally requesting an
opinion.

As this is one of the most

3.1.1.
important areas in
European politics and given that the Treaty recognises the
Committee’s role in matters relating to economic and social
cohesion, the ESC once again reiterates the need — and claims
its right — to be formally consulted on future reports on the
Structural Funds.

Results for Objective 4, aimed at

2.7.
improving job
opportunities in the light of industrial change and new systems
of production, confirmed the improvement already noted in
1998, with total commitment of appropriations and payments
at 69 %.

3.2. With regard to content, the report is unquestionably
comprehensive in terms of information, assessments and data.
It would, however, have been a good idea to change the
approach and produce a report on the entire 1994-1999
programming period.

2.8.
There were improvements for Objective 5a (structural
adjustment in agriculture and fisheries) with commitments at
96 % (agriculture) and 100 % (fisheries), and payments at 70 %
and 73 % respectively.

2.9.
Objective 5b, on the development of rural areas,
accelerated considerably in 1999 with a resulting 99 % of
commitments and 68 % of payments made.

2.10.
The 1998 reallocation of finance among the Com-
munity Initiatives, conducted at the request of the European
Parliament, brought about a considerable acceleration in
implementation. Overall,
the figures for the Community
Initiatives at the end of 1999 were 95 % for commitments and
57 % for payments.

2.11. With regard to the horizontal theme of equal oppor-
tunities, the report describes the progress made over recent
years on removing obstacles to genuine and complete equality
between women and men in the workplace and with regard to
political and social involvement. There are still underlying
problems however, which led the Council of Ministers in 1996
to issue a resolution on mainstreaming equal opportunities
into the Structural Funds.

2.12.
Studies were carried out in 1997 and 1998 on the
application of the principle of equal opportunities in the
Structural Funds, and on examples of good practice. This
served in part to raise the profile of the equality issue in the
Funds for the 2000-2006 period.

3.2.1.
The Commission has announced the publication of
a comprehensive report of this kind, but for it to be subject to
an effective evaluation, not least for the purposes of the 2000-
2006 programming period, it must be drafted as soon as
possible. The Committee hopes that publication will be
speeded up as much as possible, in order to provide useful
pointers for future years.

3.3.
The 11th report provides valuable summaries of the
performance of each country, but it fails to give a clear
and concise overview of Structural Fund management, the
problems it raises for each country and for the Union as a
whole, and the results obtained with regard to employment
and economic and social development. There is no single,
comprehensive framework to show the results obtained from
Structural Fund use for the year in question or for the overall
programming period that ended with 1999.

3.4.
As far as the method of preparing and drafting
the report is concerned, there is a wealth of quantitative
information, but little in the way of analysis and insufficient
evaluation.

3.5.
Although the information provided in the report is
important, it is insufficient and fails to properly illustrate the
repercussions of structural policy in Europe and individual
Member States.

(1) OJ C 268, 19.9.2000.

7.8.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 221/93

3.6.
As for assessing the degree to which each objective has
been achieved, the report concentrates mainly on financial
aspects, commitments and payments, without looking at the
way spending has affected growth and progress towards
economic and social cohesion in the EU as a whole and in
individual Member States.

3.7.
It would appear that the Commission’s main concern
is that of assessing the efficiency of the management of the
Structural Funds as opposed to the effectiveness of the choices
made. The only analysis is financial, whereas it
is also
important
to ascertain what are the obstacles to better
utilisation of the funds, whether there have been shortcomings
in planning or implementation, and whether the rules and
complex reporting methods have worked or if they have
caused delays or even failure to use the funds.

3.8.
In short, the Commission’s reports seem to be con-
cerned more with fulfilling its formal obligations than with
responding to the needs of the public, who should be enabled
to make a thorough assessment of the choices made by the
Commission, national governments and regional authorities.

opportunity for the Commission to take a critical (and possibly
also self-critical) look at monitoring and reporting procedures.

The Commission argues that

3.12.
it could not make
comprehensive evaluations because it does not yet have all the
data on spending, for which the deadline is the end of 2001.
This does not seem acceptable however, as it is perfectly
reasonable to conduct an evaluation of the results with over
70 % of the spending figures available.

3.13.
The Commission could adopt more streamlined and
concise report formats and complete them more rapidly,
in order to enable the relevant institutions to make their
assessments in good time, form opinions and suggest changes.

3.14.
The results are lacking in terms of physical indicators
that would have been very useful for assessing efficiency and
impact. For instance, how many hectares of farmland were
irrigated using the funds? What growth in national or regional
GDP can be attributed to the Structural Funds? How have
consumption and saving patterns changed in the region
concerned?

3.9.
In this report as in the past, the Commission’s primary
preoccupation with accounts is quite clear from its emphasis
on two key elements, the level of commitments and the level
of payments, with no sufficient explanation of the reasons for
positive or less satisfactory results.

4.

Specific comments

4.1. Employment

This makes it impossible to understand why payment
3.9.1.
levels are higher in the cohesion countries, while ‘some of the
most prosperous Member States in the Union had a lower rate
of implementation of payments than the Community average’.

there is no evaluation of

4.1.1. More specifically,
the
number of jobs created or maintained, of the most important
areas of progress in the various sectors concerned by the
objectives, or of the commonest and most serious difficulties
encountered in the various countries.

3.10.
There is no way of knowing whether the better results
achieved by the less wealthy countries are the result of a
greater need for finance, better planning, a more effective
implementation system, or all these and other reasons.

3.10.1.
These important points definitely require detailed
attention, explanations and examples, but there are none to be
found.

3.11.
Furthermore, there is no mention whatsoever of the
efficacy of the regulations that were nevertheless covered by
the reform approved in Luxembourg in June 1999. The final
for the 1994-1999 period should have been an
report

4.1.2.
Conversely, the Committee does not see the need for
almost all of Chapter 1, which devotes far more space to how
things will be and what will be done (2000-2006 period) than
to how things have been and what has been done (1999). The
report digresses, describing the entire process of preparing for
the 2000-2006 programme and detailing the characteristics of
the new funds and new regulations.

4.1.2.1.
The Committee has the impression that the Com-
mission is simply going through the motions, using a ready-
made format, without adding that extra something that from
year to year would distinguish the approach or style of the
report. The details on the thematic priorities for cohesion,
given in Chapter 1.2, are however important, enabling a more
comprehensive assessment of the impact of the Structural
Funds.

C 221/94

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

7.8.2001

4.2.
The paragraphs on the European Employment Strategy,
the new map of national regional aid and the ESDP (European
spatial development perspective) provide a frame of reference
that is essential in order to grasp the interactions and synergy
between the various Community policies for economic and
social development.

4.8.
Other evaluations relate to the rural development
programmes and Leader II. Finally, interesting comments are
made on the results of the thematic evaluation of the impact
of investments made in transport infrastructure in Objective 1
regions in certain countries.

4.3.
Useful data are also provided in the section on the
territorial employment pacts, one of the most interesting and
original initiatives of recent years.

4.4.
An example of what the report could have been is
actually given by the Commission itself in the section on
Objective 2, which reports on the conclusions of an evaluation
of the 1989-1999 period, conducted by an independent body.

4.5.
This analysis provides an in-depth examination of
conversion strategies and strategic options to support specific
priorities (job creation, research and development, the environ-
ment and equal opportunities).

4.6.

The study on Objective 2 showed that:

— significant progress has been made in the last decade,
especially with strategic planning, the involvement of
organisations and the focus on strategic priorities;

— there is still room for improvement;

— limitations included the fragmentation of programme
management responsibilities, the lack of training and
information, and the infrequent dissemination of best
practice examples.

Evaluation of Objectives 1, 3 and 4 under ESF and the
4.7.
Adapt and Employment Community Initiatives was also
entrusted by the States to third parties, and a number of
interesting points were made:

— the transnational elements of projects should be encour-

aged as much as possible;

— administrative procedures should be simplified;

4.9.
It would have been extremely useful to conduct a
thorough and systematic analytical study on the results
obtained from the use of the Structural Funds for all the
objectives throughout the 1994-1999 period, as was done for
Objective 2. A document of this kind would enable a more
thorough evaluation of European policy as a whole and
give the public, companies and research institutes a clearer
understanding of the choices made by the Commission.

4.10. Additionality

Another important

4.10.1.
theme is additionality. The
Commission stresses the importance of verifying additionality,
in order to ‘prevent the resources of the Funds from serving to
replace national structural aid’.

4.10.2.
But the report provides no specific information on
the verification of additionality, and merely refers to comments
made in the Court of Auditors’ special report published in
early 2000. In this report, the Court highlights shortcomings
in the application of the principle, primarily the absence of a
penalty system, for which the Commission is certainly not to
blame.

4.10.3.
The Committee is however concerned by the com-
ment that ‘the Commission had to be much more pragmatic
in the methodological requirements than for Objective 1,
taking into consideration the specific situation in each Member
State’.

4.10.4.
This comment, which is not supported by evidence
or examples, appears to conceal some kind of ‘flexibility’ on
the part of the Commission that should have been more clearly
explained and, more importantly, justified.

— closer cooperation is needed between those involved in
the national labour-market system and those responsible
for the Community Initiatives;

4.11. Equal opportunities

— the mainstreaming strategy should start at project level;

— monitoring procedures and a system of monitoring
indicators should be developed to support evaluation
processes.

4.11.1.
The report chooses equal opportunities as its hori-
zontal theme, and the Commission states that it wishes to look
at ‘the improvements made incorporating this political priority
in the Fund’s programmes’.

7.8.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 221/95

4.11.2.
The report gives useful general indications on the
current gender gap in the workplace. For instance, for every
Member State it describes the measures taken to promote
equal opportunities between men and women in the various
regions concerned by the Funds.

4.11.3.
The Committee would make a general comment
about the value of these horizontal analyses. The decision
taken in the 1995 report to choose a horizontal theme to use
as a yardstick for all the Structural Fund measures was certainly
very important and could add considerable value.

4.11.4.
However, the desired result has not been achieved
because the approach taken is too general, and lacks detailed
facts and figures.

4.11.5.
The Commission outlines some of the objectives of
the said strategy in each Member State but does not provide a
proper background or adequate quantitative data on the
results. The objectives therefore represent no more than a
declaration of intent as neither the results nor the effects are
analysed.

interesting information — the causal

There is no impact assessment and no mention of
4.11.6.
the results achieved or of possible failures. As a result, the
most
link between
structural policy measures and economic and social change —
cannot be found. Neither is any comparison drawn between
the various production sectors and social spheres in order to
understand if and why results and impact vary.

4.11.7.
No attention is given to factors that help or hinder
equal opportunities, and no assessment is made of the level of
part-time or temporary work, or the amount of
female
entrepreneurial activity encouraged by equal opportunities
initiatives financed by the Structural Funds, etc.

4.11.8.
It would have been useful to have further comments
on the most important problems raised by the Commission
when it refers to equality between men and women as a
productive factor and regrets the fact that ‘the labour market
remains very segregated’ and that there is still a considerable
wage gap (28 % on average in the EU) (1).

(1) OJ C 155, 29.5.2001.

4.12. Partnership

4.12.1.
Partnership is another key element that is not given
any special attention in the report although it is a critical factor
in the success of the structural policies.

4.12.2. Many questions remain unanswered: how many
and which players were involved in using the Structural Funds?
In which phases of selecting priorities, and preparing and
implementing the structural measures were they involved?
How were partnership and subsidiarity combined?

4.12.3.
Furthermore, were the partners those closest to the
final beneficiaries, enabling all concerned to develop their
potential to the full
in pursuit of a shared development
objective?

4.12.4.
Once again, information about the quantity and
quality of partnerships would have enabled a more detailed
assessment of the impact of the Structural Funds on economic
and social trends, of changes in the industrial fabric resulting
from the funds, and of the overall impact of Community
policies on cohesion.

4.13. Structural Funds and European policies

4.13.1.
The chapter on compatibility and complementarity
with the other Community policies is of great interest as it
makes the link between Structural Fund measures and the EU’s
sectoral policies.

The problem in this instance is not so much the
4.13.2.
reporting method as
content. Compatibility/comp-
lementarity between EU policies is often more theoretical than
real. In some regions there is a lack of consistency between
these policies, as they have different targets, methods and
planning periods and concern different areas.

the

4.13.3.
It is not surprising that this should be so because
policies such as the reform of the CAP, the introduction of
Economic and Monetary Union and the development of the
Single European Market are all designed to achieve desirable
broader policy objectives.

C 221/96

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

7.8.2001

4.13.4.
However, that having been said, it is important that
the deployment of Structural Funds is seen as one of the
important means by which the negative impact of these
policies in disadvantaged regions can be mitigated. Without
the use of Structural Funds these broader policy objectives
might well have a damaging impact on fragile communities
and this must be acknowledged when considering future
cohesion policy.

4.13.5.
Sometimes different European programmes are
implemented in a single area with no coordination, and this
can lead to confusion and overlaps.

4.13.6.
It is true that harmonisation in this area is not easy,
as the context in which decisions on the Structural Funds and
the various sectoral policies are made commonly involves a
multitude of sometimes conflicting players, interests and socio-
economic situations.

5. Conclusions

5.1.
Although the Committee has felt obliged to criticise
the method and content of the report, it recognises the major
effort made by the Commission to provide data for evaluating
Structural Fund management and policy.

5.2.
The Committee considers that the drafting of these
reports should not be treated as just an annual ritual that the
Commission goes through according to a ready-made format,
without adding that extra something that would distinguish
the style or approach of each report. The report should focus
on evaluation and analysis, paying special attention to jobs
generated or preserved, the effects in terms of innovation, and
results in the area of equal opportunities and partnership. This
approach would make it easier to assess the impact of
structural policy.

5.3.
Partnership is another important element that needs
proper analysis, as it is a basic factor in the success of the
structural policies.

Brussels, 30 May 2001.

5.4.
As the representative of the social partners directly
affected and concerned by the management of the Structural
Funds, the Committee could make a useful input during the
programming periods and not just at the reporting stage.

5.4.1.
The Committee believes that it would be appropriate
for it to be formally consulted on future Structural Funds
reports and reiterates its view that it has a right to be consulted
in this way.

5.5.
The Committee would stress that it is open to oppor-
tunities for various forms of cooperation with the Commission,
with a view to optimising structural and cohesion policies.

5.6.
It meanwhile hopes that the report on the entire 1994-
1999 programming period will be published as soon as
possible, to allow for evaluation before the end of 2001.

5.7.
The Committee is also of the view that a long-term
evaluation of the Structural Funds would be very useful, not
least in the light of forthcoming EU enlargement.

5.8.
The Structural Funds will be crucial for these countries
and their economies. It would therefore be useful to pass on
experience of past Structural Fund successes and failures to
those who will be responsible for administering enormous
allocations in the years ahead. The aim should be to draw on
successful methods and practices in order to avoid repeating
previous mistakes.

The Committee believes

5.9.
the principle of
additionality should be upheld because, as the Commission
itself remarks, it ‘is a general principle governing the Structural
Funds’ operations’. The Committee therefore supports the
Commission’s efforts to apply the principle rigorously.

that

5.10.
The Committee proposes to assess the feasibility of a
public initiative, in conjunction with the Commission, the
Parliament and the Committee of the Regions, to involve all
those concerned with the management of the Structural Funds,
including representatives of the applicant countries.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Göke FRERICHS