REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS SAPARD ANNUAL REPORT - YEAR 2009
Date: 2010-10-18
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Central and Eastern Europe, EU programme, accession to the European Union, activity report, aid to agriculture, rural development

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION 

Brussels, 18.10.2010 
COM(2010) 567 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE 
COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE 
COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

SAPARD ANNUAL REPORT - YEAR 2009 

SEC(2010) 1202 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE 
COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE 
COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

SAPARD ANNUAL REPORT - YEAR 2009 

1. 

INTRODUCTION 

Beginning in 2000, the European Union (EU) reinforced its pre–accession assistance for the 
rural  development  of  ten  Candidate  Countries  of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe  by  creating 
Sapard,  the  Special  Accession  Programme  for  Agriculture  and  Rural  Development.  For  its 
implementation  a  unique  approach  was  chosen:  the  national  authorities  in  the  applicant 
countries  assumed  the  entire  responsibility  through  fully  "decentralised  management"  thus 
enabling the realisation of Sapard. One objective is to implement numerous small-scale rural 
development  projects  and  the  other  is  to  create  structures  capable  of  applying  the  acquis 
communautaire upon accession. Detailed information regarding the implementation of Sapard 
can  also  be  found  in  the  previous  Annual  Reports  as  published  on  the  Commission  website 
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/external/enlarge/publi/index_en.htm. 

This  report  addresses  in  particular  the  implementation  and  financial  execution  of  Sapard  in 
Bulgaria  Romania  and  Croatia,  as  the  Sapard  programmes  of  the  eight  new  Member  States 
(MS),  which  joined  the  EU  on  1  May  2004,  have  been  completed.  During  2004  the  latter 
stopped  contracting  projects  under  their  respective  Sapard  programmes  and  switched  to 
contracting  under  the  post-accession  programmes  for  rural  development.  Payments  to  final 
beneficiaries  under  their  Sapard  programmes  ended  towards  the  end  of  2006  and  the  final 
balances of these programmes were settled by the Commission in 2007 and 2008. 

Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU on 1 January 2007, stopped contracting to final 
beneficiaries under Sapard on 31 July 2007 and 31 October 2007 respectively. 

The  programme  of  Candidate  Country  Croatia  was  approved  by  Commission  Decision  on 
8 February  2006.  With  the  Commission  Decision  of  29  September  2006  on  conferral  of 
management  Croatia  became  eligible  for  receiving  Sapard  funds.  Contracting  to  final 
beneficiaries under this programme took place until August 2009. 

Last payments to final beneficiaries of these three programmes were made towards the end of 
2009 and the payment applications for the final balance were submitted to the Commission at 
the end of December 2009. 

Sapard  Annual  Reports  have  been  made  for  the  years  2000  to  2008.  As  programme 
implementation has been finalised in 2009 the Sapard Annual Report 2009 is the last one. 

2. 

2.1 

PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT 
Overall results of financial execution1 

In  the  Sapard  Annual  Report  2005  an  assessment  was  made  of  the  achievement  of  the 
objectives in the eight new Member States that had completed contracting. A similar analysis 
has  been  made  for  Bulgaria  and  Romania  in  the  report  of  2007,  following  completion  of 
contracting  in  2007  in  these  Member  States.  As  regards  Croatia,  where  contacting  and 
payments to final beneficiaries finished in 2009, implementation results can be found below. 

1 

See Annex A. 

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As the contracting to final beneficiaries under Sapard has stopped in Bulgaria and Romania in 
2007,  implementation  in  2009  of  these  programmes  mainly  focussed  on  financial  execution 
and  control  issues.  Croatia  however  was  still  in  a  position  to  contract  EU  funds  to  final 
beneficiaries and stopped contracting in August 2009. 

At the end of 2009 allocations under Sapard to the beneficiary countries for the years 2000 
to 2006 were made for a total of €2 890,3 million, of which €1 334,1 million was allocated to 
the eight countries that joined the EU in 20042 and €1 556,2 million to Bulgaria, Romania and 
Croatia. The amount of €2 890,3 million is € 45,7 m illion less than the previous year, which is 
due to the de-commitment made in 2009 for the Bulgarian programme. 
During the period 2000 to 2009 a total amount of €2 700,5 million 3 was actually paid by the 
Commission,  representing  99,6%4  of  the  total  amount  allocated  to  the  eight  new  Member 
States and 88,2%4 for Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. 

Payments made by the Commission in the year 2009 amounted to € 254,1 million, which only 
concerned Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. 

The rate of financial execution at the end of 2009 of 88,2%, is an improvement compared to 
the  situation  at  the  end  of  2008,  when  financial  implementation  had  slowed  down  due  to 
control issues in Bulgaria and Romania and low absorption by beneficiaries in Croatia. The 
execution  rates  for  these  countries  at  the  end  of  2006,  2007  and  2008  were  46%,  62%  and 
69,8 respectively. 

2.2 

Contracted projects and financial execution5 

2.2.1  Eight new Member States 

The number of contracted projects in the eight new Member States amounted to over 34 000 
and  accounted  for  €1 448  million  of  Community  contribution  contracted.  The  rates  of 
financial execution of the programmes reach 100%, except for the Latvian programme which 
has a rate of 95%4. 
2.2.2  Romania6 

At 31 July 2007, the date when Romania stopped making contracts to final beneficiaries, the 
contracted amount was € 1 132 million. 

At  the  end  of  2009  the  contracted  amount  had  decreased  to  around  €  1  023  million  of  EU 
funds relating to approximately 4.400 approved and completed projects, compared to € 1 066 
million  of  EU  funds  at  31.12.2008.  The  decrease  of  the  contracted  amount  since  2007  of 
almost 10% is due to cancelled projects. 

The  three  largest  measures  “Investments  in  agricultural  holdings",  "Processing  and 
marketing  of  agricultural  and  fishery  products"  and  "Investments  in  rural  infrastructure" 
accounted  for around 88% of the contracted amount  of  the  programme  for  more  than  3.200 
approved  and  completed  projects.  At  the  end  of  2009  payments,  including  advances,  made 
since the start to Romania reached € 1.030,7 million, or 88,9% 4 of the amount allocated to the 
Sapard programme. 

2 

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4 
5 
6 

Czech Republic (CZ), Estonia (EE), Hungary (HU), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Poland (PL), Slovakia 
(SK), Slovenia (SI). 
Pre-financing and reimbursement payments. 
See Annex A table 3 for information on financial execution per country. 
See Annex B for numbers of contracted projects and payments to final beneficiaries per country. 
See Annex C for information on implementation for Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. 

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2.2.3  Bulgaria6 

At 31 October 2007, the date when Bulgaria stopped making contracts to final beneficiaries, 
the contracted amount was € 458 million. 

At the end of 2009 the contracted amount had decreased to around € 346  million of EU funds 
on more than 2.600 approved and completed projects, compared to € 376 million of EU funds 
to  over  2700  projects  at  31.12.2008.  The  decrease  of  the  contracted  amount  since  2007  of 
almost 25% is due to cancelled projects. 

The  three  largest  measures,  “Investments  in  agricultural  holdings",  "Processing  and 
marketing of agricultural and fishery products", including sub measure “Wholesale markets” 
and  "Development  and  diversification  of  economic  activities",  accounted  for  82%  of  the 
contracted amount of the programme with over 2.200 approved and completed projects. 

The low uptake of funds by the end of 2007 and 2008 resulted in the de-commitment of EU 
funds  of  €  27,6  million  in  2008  and  €  45,7  million 
in  2009  respectively,  thus  reducing  the 
total  amount  initially  allocated  to  the  programme  of  €  444,7  million  by  16%  to  €  371,4 
million. 

At the end of 2009 payments, including advances, made since the start to Bulgaria reached € 
327,6 million, or 88.2%4 of the amount finally allocated to the Sapard programme. Compared 
to the initial allocated amount of €444,7  million the rate of execution is 73,6%. 
2.2.4  Croatia6 

The Sapard programme of Croatia, adopted in February 2006, with conferral of management 
in September 2006 obtained an allocation of €  25 million on the basis of one single Annual 
Financing  Agreement  (AFA)  for  the  year  2006.  This  amount  has  been  allocated  to  the 
measures  "Investments  in  Agricultural  Holdings"  (34%)  and  "Processing  and  Marketing  of 
Agricultural and Fishery products" (66%). 

Contracting  of  EU  funds  to  final  beneficiaries  was  ongoing  until  August  2009  and  the 
contracted  amount  at  the  end  of  2009  was  around  €  12,7  million,  representing  51%  of  the 
amount allocated to the programme. 

At  the  end  of  2009  37  projects  were  approved  and  completed.  Payments  made  by  the 
Commission to Croatia since the start reached € 14,0 million, including an advance of € 7,2 
million, representing 55,8%4 of the amount allocated to the Sapard programme. 

The single tranche programme, adopted at the end of the programming period 2000 to 2006, 
enabled Croatia to set up the institutions and administrative capacity for the management of 
EU  funds.  However,  despite  the  efforts  made,  it  managed  to  absorb  only  about  half  of  the 
allocated  funds.  The  experience  gained  under  Sapard  benefited  to  the  preparation  and 
implementation of pre accession assistance for rural development provided under the IPARD 
programme adopted beginning 2008. 

2.2.5  Final payment application 

At  the  end  of  December  2009  the  payment  applications  of  the  final  balance  of  the 
programmes  of  Bulgaria,  Romania  and  Croatia  were  submitted  to  the  Commission. 
Comparison of the declared EU expenditure with the initial EU contribution allocated to the 
programmes resulted in financial execution rates of respectively 72%, 87% and 48%. Due to 
this  under  spending  €  123  million,  €  152  million 
and  €13  million  respectively  were  left 
unused for the programmes of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. Furthermore, as the amounts 
already  paid  by  the  Commission  to  these  programmes,  including  advances,  exceed  the 
declared  expenditure,  the  negative  final  balances  of  these  programmes  will  be  subject  to 

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recovery by the Commission. On the basis of declared amounts the final balance amounts to 
be  recovered  are  provisionally  calculated respectively  at  approximately  €  5,9  million,  €23,3 
million  and  €  1,9  million.  However  the  amounts  of   the  final  balance  are  still  subject  to 
verification,  clearance  of  the  annual  accounts  and  to  adoption  by  means  of  a  Commission 
Decision. 

2.2.6 

Leverage factor 

The total amount of public funds paid to final beneficiaries finally declared under all Sapard 
programmes  at  the  end  of  the  year  2009  is  €3 564  million,  of  which  the  Community 
contribution amounts to €2 669 million. As a large share of the investment undertaken under 
the Sapard Programme are revenue generating investments, which are supported by up to 50% 
from  public  funds,  the  overall  direct  impact  of  Community  support  under  the  Sapard 
instrument, including private financing, therefore amounts to a total of around €6 378 million 
in investments and services. Consequently each euro given by the Community under Sapard 
results in an investment of € 2,39.

The  individual  leverage  factors  of  the  programmes  of  Bulgaria,  Romania  and  Croatia  were 
respectively  €  2,79,  €  1,97  and  €  2,70.  As  investme
nts  in  rural  infrastructure,  which  do  not 
involve  private  contributions,  represent  45%  of  the  total  expenditure  declared  for  the 
Romanian programme, the leverage factor of this programme is considerably lower than those 
of Bulgaria and Croatia. 

3. 

MONITORING AND LEGAL ASPECTS 

During  2009  the  EU  continued  to  work  closely  with  the  beneficiary  countries  Bulgaria, 
Romania and Croatia on monitoring and evaluation. In addition to the on going monitoring, 
four Monitoring Committees were held during 2009, one for Bulgaria, one for Romania and 
two for Croatia. 

In  December  2008  the  Commission  extended  the  deadline  for  de-commitment  by  one  year 
to"n+3" for the AFAs 2006 signed with Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia from the end of 2008 
to the end of 2009, to give the countries the opportunity to increase absorption by executing 
payments until the end of 2009 to projects contracted under Sapard. 
A  Commission  Decision  amending  the  programme  of  Bulgaria  was  adopted  in  20097.  This 
Decision  concerned  the  modification  of  the  financial  table  to  take  account  of  the  de-
commitment of € 45,7 million from the Annual Financing Agreement (AFA) 2005. The part 
of  the  committed  amount,  which  had  not  been  spent  by  the  end  of  2008,  thus  has  been  de-
committed on the basis of the "n+3" de-commitment rule. 

As regards Romania and Croatia no Commission Decisions amending the programmes were 
adopted. 

4. 

4.1 

ACTIVITIES  IN  RELATION  TO  CONFERRAL  OF  MANAGEMENT,  AUDITS  AND 
CONTROLS 
Update on Conferral of Management of Aid and monitoring missions8 

For Sapard the assurance is obtained from a management and control system of programmes 
that has been established in line with both the principles under the agricultural funds and the 

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See Annex D. 
See Annex E. 

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relevant  external  aid  provisions  of  the  Financial  Regulation.  It  is  based  on  a  decentralised 
approach with six main characteristics: 

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– 

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– 

– 

– 

Sapard  Agencies  established  and  accredited  by  each  applicant  country,  responsible 
for the implementation of the programmes, 

conferral of management issued by the Commission, 

rules for ex-ante controls to be carried out by the Sapard Agencies on 100 % of all 
projects  and  related  payments  before  approval  of  the  project  and  before  each 
payment, 

rules  for  ex-post  controls  to  be  carried  out  by  the  Sapard  Agencies  on  all  projects 
within 5 years of the final payment to the project, 

certification of the annual accounts of the Sapard Agencies by independent auditors, 

clearance  procedure  in  two  steps:  an  annual  financial  clearance  of  accounts 
procedure, determining the amount of expenditure effected by the Sapard Agencies 
during the preceding financial year, which shall be recognised as being chargeable to 
Sapard fund and secondly, a conformity clearance excluding financing that has been 
made without respecting the applicable rules. 

In 2009 no conferral audit mission was carried out and no Commission Decision was issued in 
this respect. 

According to Regulation (EC) No 2222/2000, the Commission shall also monitor continued 
compliance with the conditions and provisions of that regulation including its annex. On that 
basis, one monitoring mission was carried out in Croatia in December 2009. Given the results 
of those checks, it appears that the accreditation criteria are generally complied with. It has to 
be  noted  that  considering  the  scope  of  this  mission,  the  projects  were  not  analysed  in  all 
details,  in  particular  concerning  their  eligibility,  and  that  they  may  be  subject  to  further 
conformity enquiries. 

4.2 

Action  plans  and  resumption  of  reimbursements  to  Bulgaria  and  Romania  in 
2009 

As  described  in  the  2008  Sapard  Annual  Report,  following  the  findings  of  missions  carried 
out  in  2008  to  Bulgaria  and  Romania  the  national  Authorities  of  both  countries  were 
requested  by  letters  sent  in  June  and  July  2008  respectively  to  draw  up  an  action  plan  to 
remedy the control deficiencies and to inform the Commission of the implementation of such 
a  plan.  The  countries  were  also  informed  about  the  interruption  by  the  Commission  of 
reimbursements of declared expenditure with regard to three important measures in the case 
of  Bulgaria  and  for  all  measures  of  Romania,  until  proper  implementation  of  their  action 
plans. 

The Commission continued in 2009 to monitor closely the implementation of the action plans. 
The  Commission  has  analysed  the  additional  information  received,  showing  that  the 
additional work requested by the Commission from the agency and audit authority has been 
carried out and reported on in the way agreed. Further information was requested and based 
on  that  and  the  conclusion  of  the  independent  audit  authorities  that  the  action  plans  were 
implemented, the reimbursement of declared expenditure resumed for Romania and Bulgaria 
respectively  in  July  and  September  2009.  Please  see  under  heading  4.4  below  for  further 
information. 

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4.3 

Clearance of Accounts Decisions 

Following the requirements set down in Regulation (EC) No 2222/2000, the Commission has 
to clear the account(s) of the Sapard Agencies, which have been established in the Candidate 
Countries. On that basis, the Commission adopted a Decision on 30 September 2009, which 
cleared the 2008 accounts of Croatia. 

Pending  the  review  of  supplementary  information  which  has  been  requested  from  Romania 
and Bulgaria, the Clearance of Accounts Decision for the financial year 2008 with regard to 
these countries could not be adopted at that stage. It should also be noted that the Clearance of 
Accounts Decision concerning the 2007 accounts of Romania is still outstanding for similar 
reasons. 

4.4 

Conformity Clearance 

In 2009, two conformity missions to audit the expenditure under Sapard were carried out by 
the Commission, one in Romania in November and one in Bulgaria in December. 

During  these  audit  missions  the  new  management,  control  and  sanctioning  system  for  the 
concerned measures financed under Sapard were reviewed. The missions also followed up the 
implementation of the action plans in relation to the measures concerned and concluded that 
the management, control and sanctioning system has improved in comparison to the past and 
that the action plan has been implemented. However, the mission also revealed certain other 
weaknesses both with regard to administrative and on-the-spot checks. 

4.4.1  Romania 

For  Romania  the  conformity  audit  carried  out  focused  on  the  measures  "Processing  and 
marketing,  "Development  and  improvement  of  rural  infrastructure",  "Investments  in 
agricultural  holdings"  and  "Diversification  of  economic  activities".  The  implementation  of 
the action plan, requested to the Romanian authorities was also followed up by means of files 
verifications and on-the-spot checks under the selected measures and other tests. In particular, 
checks  were  carried  out  to  obtain  assurance  that  the  control  system  was  implemented  in 
accordance with the accredited procedures and that the controls were carried out to a required 
standard. 

The main findings concerned the on-the-spot-checks as part of the supervision by the Sapard 
Agency,  the  evidence  and  documentation  in  control  reports  of  measurements  made  and  the 
management of the database of reference prices. 

4.4.2  Bulgaria 

For  Bulgaria  the  conformity  audit  carried  out  focused  on  measures  "Investments  in 
agricultural  holdings",  "Processing  and  marketing  of  agricultural  and  fishery  products", 
"Diversification  of  economic  activities  providing  for  alternative  income",  "Renovation  and 
development  of  villages",  "Protection  and  conservation  of  the  rural  heritage  and  cultural 
traditions" and "Development and improvement of rural infrastructure". The implementation 
of  the  action  plan  requested  to  the  Bulgarian  authorities  was  also  followed  up  by  means  of 
files verifications and on-the-spot checks under the selected measures and other tests. 

The  main  findings  concerned  the  lack  of  indications  in  the  checklist  for  on-the-spot  checks 
with  regard  to  the  way  measurements  were  made  and  lack  of  documentation  in  the  control 
reports. 

The outcome of the conformity audits, such as the possibility of financial corrections to the 
expenditure concerned, will be considered at the end of the clearance of accounts procedures. 

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4.5 

Information on irregularities and fraud 

The obligation to report detected irregularities is established in Section F of the Multi-annual 
Financing Agreement signed with beneficiary countries. 
In  20099  OLAF  received  367  first  notifications  and  667  updated  communications  on 
irregularities  detected  under  Sapard  programme  in  9  Member  states  and  Candidate  Country 
Croatia. 

The number of reports increased by 59% in comparison with 2008. The highest numbers of 
reports  came  from  Bulgaria,  Romania  and  Poland.  The  reporting  tendencies  are  changing. 
Bulgaria demonstrates an increase in reported cases from 56 in 2008 to 250 in 2009, Poland a 
small increase of 2%, while Romania shows a decrease of 42%, Hungary presents a decline of 
36%, and Croatia did not report any new cases. 

EU financial contribution under the Sapard programmes reported as being  irregular in  2009 
has increased by 103% in comparison to 2008 and the amount to be recovered has increased 
by 139%. The highest amount to be recovered concerns Bulgaria. 

Suspected fraud cases were only reported by Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Poland. They 
account  for  77%  of  2009  cases  in  Bulgaria,  14%  of  cases  in  Hungary,  5%  of  cases  in 
Romania, and 2% in Poland. 

Most  frequent  methods  of  detection  in  2009  were  'audit'  (21%  of  all  cases),  ‘control  of 
documents’  (15%),  ‘national  administrative  or  financial  control’  (15%),  and  'interservice 
collaboration' (11%). 

Most  frequent  types  of  irregularity  in  2009  were  'falsified  supporting  documents'  (29%  of 
cases),  'failure  to  respect  other  regulations/contract  conditions'  (13%),  and  'infringement  of 
rules on public procurement' (11%). The biggest change in comparison to 2008 was noticed in 
the share of cases involving 'falsified supporting documents' i.e. from 18% to 29%. All those 
cases were reported by Bulgaria. 

During  2009,  OLAF  continued  to  investigate  serious  instances  of  fraud  and  irregularities 
under the SAPARD measure "Processing and marketing of agricultural and fishery products", 
in  both  Bulgaria  and  Romania.  OLAF's  investigations  have  uncovered  clear  evidence  of 
systematic fraud in numerous SAPARD funded projects. This evidence has been passed to the 
respective  judicial  authorities  and  Paying  Agencies  for  appropriate  action  (judicial 
investigation and financial recovery). 

At  the  end  of  2009  OLAF's  investigations  into  numerous  SAPARD  funded  projects  in 
Bulgaria and Romania were continuing and indeed increasing in number. 

5. 

TRANSITION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES AND INSTRUMENT FOR PRE-
ACCESSION ASSISTANCE (IPA) 

Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  447/2004  provided  rules  to  facilitate  the  transition  from 
support under Sapard to the financing after accession by the European Agricultural Guidance 
and  Guarantee  Fund  (EAGGF)  Guarantee  Section.  After  accession  and  when  contracting  to 
final  beneficiaries  under  Sapard  stopped,  the  new  Member  States  joining  the  EU  in  2004 
could include payments of projects for which appropriations under Sapard were exhausted or 
insufficient,  in  rural  development  programmes  for  the  period  2004  to  2006.  All  countries 
except Estonia and Latvia made use of this possibility. 

9 

See Annex F. Only three reporting quarters of 2009 are covered. 

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Under  the  conditions  of  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  248/2007  the  outstanding  multi-
annual commitments made under the Sapard programmes of Bulgaria and Romania in relation 
to afforestation, producer groups or agri-environmental schemes, could be covered under the 
rural  development  programmes  for  the  period  2007  to  2013  and  financed  by  the  European 
Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). 

Further pre-accession assistance for the period 2007 to 2013 has been granted to Croatia on 
25 February  2008  when  the  Commission  approved  the  programme  for  agriculture  and  rural 
development of Croatia under Component V of IPA. 

6. 

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS 

Although  all  Sapard  programmes  have  been  implemented,  the  final  balances  of  eight  new 
Member  States  have  been  paid  or  recovered  and  the  applications  of  the  final  balances  for 
Bulgaria,  Romania  and  Croatia  have  been  received  by  the  Commission,  there  are  ongoing 
events and actions related to Sapard beyond 2009, some of which are worthy of mention: 

– 

– 

the settlement of the final balance for the Bulgarian, Romanian and Croatian Sapard 
programmes, can only be made in accordance with article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 
248/2007 of 8 March 2007, when 

•  a certified statement of expenditure is submitted to the Commission, 

•  the  final  report  on  implementation  has  been  submitted  to  and  approved  by  the 

Commission, 

•  the Clearance of Accounts Decision has been adopted. 

According to MAFA the eight Sapard beneficiary countries which became Member 
States in 2004 must continue during five years after the final payment of the project, 
to check that projects did not undergo a substantial modification and to record debts 
in  the  debtors'  ledger  until  all  debts  are  recovered  or  written  off  at  the  end  of  the 
second year following their registration. Amounts recovered and written off shall be 
notified to and are subject to recovery by the Commission. In this respect an annual 
reporting  procedure  has  been  established  between  the  Commission  and  the  eight 
countries for which the final balance has already been settled. 

7. 

CONCLUSIONS AND ASSESSMENT OF ACHIEVEMENT OF OBJECTIVES 

The assessment of the overall impact of the Sapard instrument in the ten beneficiary countries 
with regard to its objectives has been covered in detail in previous Sapard Annual Reports. 

In  general  it  was  found  that  the  various  measures  financed  under  Sapard  contribute  to 
sustainable  economic  development,  improvement  of  environment  and  living  conditions,  the 
rural infrastructure and the creation of job opportunities in rural areas. Investments made on 
farms  and  in  the  food  industry  helped  the  agricultural  sector  to  prepare  for  accession  to  the 
EU and contributed in particular to the attainment of EU standards. 

The experience gained during the implementation of the Sapard programme measures and the 
establishment  of  the  necessary  implementation  structures  were  used  in  the  period  after 
accession in the course of preparation of the rural development programmes financed under 
the  European  Agricultural  and  Rural  Development  Fund  and  the  European  Agricultural 
Guarantee Fund, as well as in preparing the Croatian IPARD programme. 

In  2009  ex-post  evaluations  were  carried  out  with  regard  to  the  eight  programmes  already 
closed. 

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In  summary  these  evaluations  showed  that  Sapard  pre-accession  funds  used  for  the 
agricultural  investment  and  processing  investments  measures  have  been  relatively  effective, 
contributing  to  the  competitiveness,  and  income  at  the  individual  level  of  the  beneficiaries, 
rather than at sector level, where impacts were moderate due to the limitations of the Sapard 
budget. 

The  impacts  on  the  rural  economies  are  usually  shown  to  be  significant  at  local  micro 
community level. The relative small budget available prevented Sapard from having a greater 
impact at regional and national level. 

Due to the small share of the budget for the measure "Diversification of economic activities", 
Sapard did not significantly decrease the dependency on agriculture in rural areas. 

The  evaluations  also  confirmed  the  positive  impacts  of  Sapard,  on  the  set  up  of  the 
institutional  structures  for  the  management  and  control  of  EU  funds,  job  creation  and 
maintenance  of  jobs,  technological  modernisation,  and  indirectly,  the  introduction  of 
environmentally friendly technologies. 

A horizontal assessment by a synthesis report of the ex post evaluations of the eight already 
closed  programmes  is  scheduled  for  completion  during  the  second  semester  of  2010. 
Following the closure and ex-post evaluations of the programmes in Bulgaria, Romania and 
Croatia a similar assessment will be carried out. 

EN 

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   EN