WRITTEN QUESTION E-0857/02 by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council. Priority use of the Structural Funds in training and research and development: the case of Galicia.
Date: 2002-04-03
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Galicia, Structural Funds, capital goods, information society, occupational migration, research and development, vocational training

26.9.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 229 E/151

With Spain providing the other half of the financing, total public investment of almost EUR 1 billion will
be available for that period. This OP is multi-regional in character and there is no prior regional allocation
of the finance.

The programme includes a major project for telecommunications infrastructure that will provide Internet
access for 250 000 people in rural areas who still have only analogue technology. This major project
concerns the TRAC rural cellular access telephone network.

Article 26 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural
Funds (1) requires a Member State which envisages the Funds contributing to a major project to inform the
Commission in advance and provide all the information specified in that Article. The Commission has not
yet received that information and so cannot comment on the project’s impact in Galicia.

(1) OJ L 161, 26.6.1999.

(2002/C 229 E/174)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0857/02

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(3 April 2002)

Subject: Priority use of the Structural Funds in training and research and development: the case of Galicia

In the light of Ireland’s experience, the idea is gaining ground in the European Union that the Structural
Funds should primarily be used for training for workers and for research and development, rather than for
infrastructure. This idea responds to an urgent need, even though it is also true that in many outlying areas
it was necessary to construct communications links with the centre of the Union and modernise other
infrastructure as a pre-condition for development. However,
it is also inseparable from a specific and
effective regional development policy, which is incompatible with indiscriminate promotion of labour
mobility between various regions, bringing with it the certain risk of creating a paradoxical situation where
the less developed regions, such as Galicia, help to educate generations of technicians who are then unable
to find jobs and are obliged to emigrate to the centre of Europe or to more developed parts of Spain.

What strategic measures will the Council take to make training and R & D compatible with regional
development and ensure that there are businesses in the countries concerned which are capable of
absorbing the new technical skills created, in the absence of which workers are forced into this new type
of emigration, euphemistically known as labour mobility?

Reply

(27 June 2002)

The Council would remind the Honourable Member that during the programming period 2000-
1.
2006, Objective 1 programmes are focussed on three categories of projects likely to generate a process of
sustainable, endogenous growth,

? infrastructures (28 % of funds), approximately half of which are for transport infrastructure;

? human resources (20 % of funds) with priority given to employment policies and education and

training systems;

? intervention in support of the manufacturing sector (42 % of funds).

C 229 E/152

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

26.9.2002

2. More specifically with regard to the Objective 1 programme for Galicia, the contribution from the
Structural Funds for the period in question amounts to EUR 3 430 million. The Programme covers 11
priority areas and technical assistance measures.

With particular reference to priority 2 of the Galician programme, which is entirely dedicated to a
knowledge-based society (innovation, R & D, information society), aid will be granted for the development
of scientific research activities and the promotion of transfers of technology to the manufacturing sector as
well as aid for investment in human capital. Public research centres and other centres of technology will be
set up or modernised; research, innovation and technological development projects will receive subsidies
and scientific and technological equipment will be financed. Aid will also be made available to support the
spread of the information society, notably to facilitate cross-border cooperation with the North of Portugal.
The total cost of priority 2 of the Galician programme is EUR 171 573. More detailed information on this
Programme is available on the Commission’s ‘europa’ Internet site.

3. With reference to the Community’s research policy, the sixth framework programme for research
(2002-2006) provides for measures to boost the research activities in Objective 1 regions. As the
Honourable Member knows, the Council is currently negotiating with the European Parliament the content
of the sixth framework programme, due to be adopted under the co-decision procedure this summer.

(2002/C 229 E/175)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0860/02

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(3 April 2002)

Subject: Reform of the common fisheries policy and need for a political agreement in the Council to put an

end to the privileges and discrimination which currently characterise the CFP

What initiatives is the Spanish EU Presidency taking to secure a fresh political agreement making it
possible to include in the CFP reform measures aimed at ending the privileges and discriminations which
characterise that policy, and in particular abolishing the unfair ‘principle of relative stability’?

What initiatives has the Spanish Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Miguel Arias Cañete, launched since
he appeared before the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries?

Reply

(27 June 2002)

The Council would refer the Honourable Member to the reply it has already given to Question E-0067/02
which he put on the same subject.

(2002/C 229 E/176)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0862/02

by Karl-Heinz Florenz (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(3 April 2002)

Subject: Transposition of Article 7 of Directive 91/271/EEC ? banning the discharge of domestic sewage

into slurry and liquid manure tanks for agricultural use

The Federal Land of North-Rhine Westphalia is banning the discharge of domestic sewage into slurry and
liquid manure tanks for agricultural use from 31 December 2005, referring in particular to Article 7 of
Council Directive 91/271/EEC (1). The present arrangement tolerates a proportion of 10 % domestic waste
water in the mixture of slurry or manure and sewage from retired farmers’ homes.