Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-17-Speech-5-049"
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"en.20000317.5.5-049"2
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"Mr President, I have been watching this whole business of Structural Funds and additionality for many years, and there are a number of things that we can learn from the past. The first is that the money in absolute terms in most regions of the Community is relatively small, and its impact is political rather economic – though that is important too. I have often said it is important that we as a European Union should not just make regulations telling people what they may or may not do, but that we should extend what appears to the European public and to the regions of the Union to be tangible benefits. Even in rich regions they will appreciate the fact that the European Union tries to help close the gap between rich and poor.
The other thing in the macro-economic sense that we can say is that, if a certain amount of Structural Funds is allocated to Portugal or Greece or Ireland, as it has been in the past, then that money goes into these states in any case and that is the first impact that it has. The money is actually transferred and, regardless of whether the letter of the law is observed or not, the countries become the better off.
Another point that I would like to make is that we can learn from the past. First of all, we have now tidied up the regulations to some extent, but originally they were written in an effort to please every sector and every political interest, so that it became impossible, with the staff that the European Commission had at its disposal, to police the spending of the money, and that is still the case to a large degree.
We are now into to the third or fourth programme. What we must do is learn from the mistakes of the past and try and apply the lessons to the future. If you want to be absolutely effective with the way this money is spent, what you need to do is to look at what a country has been spending previously, and to ask them to submit their plans to the European Commission. The European Commission identifies the weaknesses in this plan and says: This is the way we would like our money to be spent in addition to what you have already allocated for all this work you intend to do.
In my personal experience in Ireland, I never heard the European Commission take Ireland to task for failure in the area of additionality. But one should remember that, between 1982 and 1992, the Structural Funds to Ireland peaked; they are getting less now, and there was a generous amount of money. But, from 1982 to 1992, the public capital programme actually reduced, including Structural Funds. It reduced in real terms by 30%. So where did the Structural Funds go? The Structural Funds actually went into public sector pay and social welfare, and it is very questionable as to whether they did a good or a bad turn to the Irish economy in those years, because they contributed to inflation and increased wage demands. So there are lessons to be learned: set against the staff the Commission had at its disposal to deal with the Irish problem – three or four people – Ireland had 30 000 civil servants, and the Irish Civil Service won every time!"@en1
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