BRATISLAVA, February 9, (WEBNOVINY) – If the current snail’s pace in drawing money from EU funds continues, Slovakia will use only about 75 percent from the allocated EUR 11.5 billion from European Union’s resources in this seven-year program period, stated cohesion policy manager at the Economic Policy Institute Michal Santai. He added that in this case we will have to return to the European Union the unused EUR 3 billion at the end of 2015.
“I believe that none of us wants to imagine such a black scenario. Unfortunately, drawing is constant, we have been drawing at the same pace since mid-2009 while in the previous year we did not do anything to improve it,” stated Santai on Thursday at a meeting with media devoted to drawing on EU funds. Last year, Slovakia drew only 1 percent a month on average from the overall possible EU resources and according to the level of how much the country draws money from EU funds, it is at the 22nd place from among all 27 EU member countries. Lithuania and Estonia are best in drawing money from EU funds while Romania and Bulgaria at the tail end of the chart.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are five major problems in Slovakia that impede more effective and faster drawing of money from EU funds. “First of all it is ineffective management of implementation since management of EU funds is in the current state atomized, decentralized and there are too many institutions involved in it that behave more or less autonomously,” Santai continued. The central coordination authority, which should be responsible for drawing, does not have, in his opinion, any tools to force managing bodies of operating programs, i.e. particular departments, to do their utmost to accelerate drawing of money from EU funds.
Another problem is, according to the institute, non-observation of the management system, complexity and excess red tape as well as slow contracting of new projects and problems in public procurement. “Slow contracting of new projects is a core issue. Without contracting it is not possible to draw money and slow contracting is the worst reason why the Information Society and Transportation programs have so slow pace of drawing,” Santai added. He opines that the current law on public procurement is absolutely inconvenient and rather presents an obstacle for drawing on EU funds.
Of the overall allocated amount of EUR 11.498 billion, Slovakia drew EUR 2.877 billion or 25.02 percent as of the end of the previous year. In late 2011, EUR 7.778 billion was contracted representing 67.64 percent of the allocation. The Operational Program Health had the highest level of drawing from EU funds as of the end of last year, followed by Technical Assistance and Regional Operational Program.
SITA
