| EC freezes Croatian Phare projects |
| 15 January 2008 | 16:27
| Source:
Tanjug |
ZAGREB --
The European Commission (EC) has temporarily frozen Croatian Phare projects.
It has also reduced the funds allocated to the country via the IPA program by EUR 5mn because of weaknesses in creating a decentralized system of management of projects backed by EU funds.
According to EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn’s spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy, the decision is only temporary and will be in force until the Commission is satisfied that Croatia has made progress, Croatian media reports.
In its 2007 progress report on Croatia, the EC said that the country had shown great weaknesses last year in implementing a decentralized system for management of pre-accession assistance, said Nagy and warned that Zagreb had to deal with these weaknesses as soon as possible.
The Phare pre-accession assistance program is intended for candidate states in building institutions and promoting economic and social cohesion.
In 2007, Phare, together with two other pre-accession programs – ISPA and SAPARD – was replaced by a single pre-accession assistance program called IPA.
Depending on the degree of readiness of each candidate-state user, the programs are implemented via both centralized and decentralized management systems.
Via the latter, responsibility for carrying out projects is transferred to the state user, while the EC delegation in that country retains the right to prior and retrospective control of project implementation.
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