Not one euro allocated by the European Union to Croatia will remain unused, Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Branko Grcic said on Friday, calling on the Opposition not to "confuse the public with intentional falsehoods."
Commenting on media reports about a delay in system accreditation, which is the reason why the money made available to Croatia has not been withdrawn from EU funds, Grcic told a news conference in the government headquarters that the job was being finalised and that the European Commission was expected to give its accreditation in the next few months, which he said would not affect the use of the available funds.
Croatia currently has at its disposal around 200 million euros from the IPA pre-accession programme and 450 million euros from structural funds for 2013, and it is incorrect and tendentious to claim that obtaining accreditation is a precondition for inviting bids for the use of those funds. Tenders, worth 540 million euros, have been published, which is almost the entire amount made available to us, Grcic recalled.
He also dismissed as untrue claims that not enough was being done in terms of project preparation, saying that last year 300 million kuna had been set aside from the budget for that purpose and that this year 380 million had been set aside solely for project documentation, making up around 5% of the project costs. The minister added that projects worth 8 billion kuna were being prepared.
The computer system that will monitor the implementation of EU projects (management information system, or MIS), which is a precondition for the accreditation and which covers all institutions involved in the utilisation of EU funds (ten ministries and a dozen agencies) is currently being tested by the Agency for the Audit of European Union Programmes Implementation System (ARPA), which gives its opinion to the European Commission, "and the first estimates from the EC show that everything will be OK," said Grcic.
He said this meant that an advance payment of 150 million euro will possibly be paid in May instead of in January. The money will not go to waste, it is more a matter of current solvency which has not been threatened because there is 45 million euros in the treasury from the IPA programme, the minister said.
He underlined that "no one, the Opposition included, could claim that the money from EU funds for 2014 is not being used. It's nonsense."
The EU's Financial Perspective for the 2014-2020 period was adopted only in late 2013 so the framework for the allocation of funds for 2014 is only being prepared, in Croatia and the rest of the EU alike. The first tenders for this year will probably be published in the last quarter, Grcic said.
Calling on the Opposition not to misinform the public, Grcic said that due to the system not having been prepared, 40 million euros from pre-accession funds had to be returned to the EU budget after three years in 2008. Also, the MIS developed in 2007 to monitor the use of IPA funds, could not be upgraded to monitor structural funds and has remained inoperative to date, according to Grcic.
Grcic said "A Week of EU Funds", an educational event, would be held in Zagreb on February 10-14 to acquaint the public and potential users with all aspects of programming and use of funds.
(Hina)
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