Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-281"
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"en.20031021.9.2-281"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nobody these days would dare to question the fact that the Structural Funds have been and still are an essential tool for reducing inequalities in regional development. It pains me greatly, therefore, to see that as much as EUR 91.6 billion in available funds – or the equivalent of the European Union’s annual budget – has not yet been used. In the run-up to the deadline for the 1994-99 programming period, there were still some 300 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programmes which had made no claims for payment whatsoever. Under the circumstances, such figures verge on the disgraceful. My sole consolation is the knowledge that, of all the Member States, Portugal is one of the best at implementing the Funds.
In fact, for Community support framework II (QSF II), for which complete data have only recently become available, Portugal’s implementation rates are exemplary: 99.6% for the ERDF, 98.3% for the European Social Fund (ESF), 100% for the European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund
(EAGGF) and 90% for the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG). Portugal’s overall execution rate of 94.2% is significantly higher than those of its European partners. Similarly, the QSF-III for 2000-2006 is still proving very irksome for the European Union. Yet again, the figures for Portugal are on track, according to the mid-term reviews.
The causes of this under-implementation are well-known: long, complex programmes, unreliable payment forecasts and overlapping programming periods. In the face of the large amounts of unused funds, the Council has proposed solutions which, to my mind, err on the side of caution. I am convinced that measures such as these will not yield the results expected of them, and that some of them will even be counterproductive. The Commission should be forced to take responsibility for defining priorities, enhancing the consistency of operations and monitoring implementation, leaving the Member States solely responsible for implementing and managing structural operations. Apart from anything else, this under-execution of the Structural Funds is extremely bad for the image of the European Union among its citizens. Finally, as a citizen of Portugal and a native of the Algarve, I am hopeful that the forthcoming QSF-IV for 2007-2013 will continue to allow the Algarve region to benefit from structural operations, even in the context of an enlarged Europe. If that does not happen, I feel it would be legitimate to call for a fair solution permitting regions such as this, which are ineligible simply due to the effects of the statistical impoverishment of the enlarged European Union, to be assisted in their quest for convergence."@en1
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