Sustainable Theory -Unsustainable

Practice?

Billions for Sustainability? - Third Briefing

Sustainable Theory -Unsustainable

Practice?

Billions for Sustainability? - Third Briefing

CEE Bankwatch Net work, 2002

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ISBN 963 00 9994 2

Copy right CEE Bankwatch Net work and Friends of the Earth Eu rope,2002

All rights re served. No part of this pub li ca tion may be re pro duced, storedin a re trieval sys tem, or trans mit ted in any form or by any means, elec -tronic, me chan i cal, pho to copy ing, re cord ing or oth er wise, with out theprior per mis sion of the pub lisher.

CEE Bankwatch Net work

PO Box 1231450 Bu da pest

Hun gary

URL: http://www.bankwatch.org

Friends of the Earth Eu rope

29 rue Blanche, B-1060 Brussels

Bel gium

URL: http://www.foeeurope.org

Cover de sign: Ekologika Bt.

Lay out: Annamária Bittó

Printed by: Indigit Press, Bu da pest, Hun gary

Ta ble of Contents

List of Ab bre vi a tions 7In tro duc tion 9Gen eral Re marks 11Coun try Re ports:

Bul garia 21Czech Re pub lic 33Es to nia 47Hun gary 55Lat via 67Lith u a nia 79Po land 93Slo vak Re pub lic 109

Endnotes 127List of ISPA Pro jects 131Addresses of the Pro jects Part ners 151

List of Ab bre vi a tions

CEE Cen tral and East ern Eu rope

DG Di rec tor Gen eral

EC Eu ro pean Com mis sion

EIA En vi ron mental Im pact As sess ment

EBRD Eu ro pean Bank for Re con struc tion and De vel op ment

EIB Eu ro pean In vest ment Bank

EU Eu ro pean Union

GDP Gross Do mes tic Prod uct

IFIs In ter na tional Fi nan cial In sti tu tions

ISPAJROP

In stru ment for Struc tural Pol icies for Pre-Accession AidJoint Re gional Op er a tional Plan

NGO Non Gov ern men tal Or ga ni za tion

NDP Na tional De vel op ment Plan

NPC – ESC Na tional Pro gram Com mit tee for Eco nomic and So cialCo he sion

NUTS No men cla ture of Ter ri to rial Units for Sta tis tics

OLAF Eu ro pean Anti – Fraud Of fice

PHARE Po land Hun gary As sis tance in the Re struc turing of theirEcon omies

REC Re gional En vi ron men tal Cen tre for Cen tral and East ernEu rope

ROP Re gional Op er a tional Pro grammes

SAPARD Spe cial Ac tion for Pre-Accession mea sures for Ag ri cul tureand Ru ral De vel op ment

SEA Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment

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List of Abbrreviations

SMEs Small and Me dium-sized En ter prises

SOP Sec toral Op er a tional Pro grammes

TEN Trans-European Net work

TINA Trans port In fra struc ture Needs As sess ment

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List of Abbreviations

In tro duc tion

The Co pen ha gen Eu ro pean Coun cil in June 1993 agreed that: “theas so ci ated coun tries of Cen tral and East ern Eu rope that so de sire, shall be come mem -bers of the Eu ro pean Un ion”. Since then, steps have been taken to en ablethat pro cess. One of the steps was the es tab lish ment of new fi nan cialmech a nisms for pre-accession aid. In the pe riod 2000-2006, the Eu ro -pean Un ion is ex pected to pro vide fi nan cial sup port for ac ces sion coun -tries in an nual amounts of ap prox i mately EUR three bil lion via suchmech a nisms as ISPA, SAPARD and PHARE 2000. At the same time,co-financing from In ter na tional Fi nan cial In sti tu tions (IFIs), mainly the Eu ro pean In vest ment Bank (EIB), is ex pected.

With this amount of fi nan cial aid, pro found changes in the econ o -mies of Cen tral and East ern Eu ro pean (CEE) coun tries are ex pected,which will at the same time have a sig nif i cant im pact on the en vi ron -ment, as the re sources will be used for in fra struc ture pro jects, en ergy,na ture con ser va tion, en vi ron ment and ag ri cul ture. There fore, theabove-mentioned fi nan cial in stru ments should be in line with the prin -ci ples of sus tain able de vel op ment and cross-sectoral in te gra tion of en -vi ron men tal prin ci ples in all pol icy ar eas. The need to in te grateen vi ron men tal con cerns into other EU pol i cies has been ac knowl edgedsince the Sin gle Eu ro pean Act, later of fi cially stated in the Am ster damTreaty. The proper use of pre-accession funds, ac cord ing to the prin ci -ple of sus tain able de vel op ment, is cru cial for the fu ture state of the en vi -ron ment in CEE coun tries.

The ac ces sion pro cess will also have an ir re vers ible im pact on theso ci et ies of CEE coun tries. Civil trans for ma tion is still an on go ing pro -cess in the CEE re gion. With the ac ces sion and planned fi nan cialpre-accession aid mech a nisms, new chal lenges for build ing up civil so ci -ety arise. It is nec es sary that cit i zens of the ac ces sion coun tries un der -stand and sup port changes and in vest ments re lated to ac ces sion. Toachieve that, a better un der stand ing of pre-accession aid mech a nisms, as well as trans par ency and pub lic par tic i pa tion in the in vest ments fi -nanced by EU re lated sources, is nec es sary.

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Introduction

“Bil lions for Sustainability? – Fi nan cial As pects of Ac ces sion”Pro ject

This pro ject aims at in creas ing the abil ity of en vi ron men tal NGOsin the re gion to deal with pre-accession aid, mon i tor pro jects fi nancedby these sources, as well as aim ing at the pro mo tion of a more par tic i pa -tory ap proach from both cit i zens’ and au thor i ties’ sides, re sult ing in fullcivil so ci ety in volve ment in the de ci sion-making pro cess.

The pro ject is be ing im ple mented by Friends of the Earth Eu ropeand the CEE Bankwatch Net work groups from Po land, Hun gary,Czech Re pub lic, Es to nia, Lith u a nia, Lat via, Bul garia and Slovakia.These groups have much ex pe ri ence with the is sues of en vi ron ment and fi nan cial in sti tu tions. Be ing from the re gion, they have an ob vi ous in ter -est in the is sues.

This re port is the third brief ing pa per con ducted un der the pro ject.It aims to pro vide in for ma tion on the stages of the pre-accession aidmech a nisms in the ac ces sion coun tries. Our main fo cus re mains pub licpar tic i pa tion and ac cess to in for ma tion, as well as the en vi ron men talcon se quences of im ple men ta tion of the pre-accession aid.

The brief ing was pre pared and put to gether by pro ject part ners. The Pro ject is fi nan cially sup ported by the Min is try of For eign Af -

fairs of the Neth er lands and Novib.

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Introduction

General Remarks: What is the UltimateGoal of the Pre-Accession Funds?

This re port is the third up date pre pared in the course of Bil lions forSustainability? – fi nan cial as pects of ac ces sion pro ject and builds uponthe two pre vi ous up dates (re leased in Oc to ber 2000 and June 2001).There fore, we en cour age the reader to have a look at the pre vi ous pub li -ca tions in or der to have a better over view of the whole pro cess.

In the last eight months, we have seen in ter est ing de vel op ments interms of the pre-accession funds on both the na tional and Eu ro peanUn ion (EU) level. Es pe cially strik ing was the scan dal in Slovakia withmis use of the EU funds, re veal ing a lot of sys temic de fi cien cies on bothsides. It is a pity, how ever, that we needed a scan dal like that to movethings for ward while at the same time, con stant non-Governmental Or -ga ni za tions (NGO) calls for in creased trans par ency andwell-established in ter nal mech a nisms for su per vi sion and mon i tor ingwere most of the time left un an swered.

There fore, our pre vi ous rec om men da tions re main valid and are re it -er ated here as well as ex panded with an in creas ing amount of ex pe ri ence and ev i dence. The fol low ing gen eral as pects, which we have comeacross in many can di date coun tries, should be un der lined:

Pub lic Par tic i pa tion and Ac cess to In for ma tionThe sit u a tion in the area of pub lic par tic i pa tion and ac cess to in for -

ma tion var ies de pend ing on the coun try and some times also on the re -spon si ble Agency/Min is try. Gen erally, we have ob served a lack ofpub lic par tic i pa tion. It hap pens that the re spon si ble agen cies treat pub -lic in volve ment as an ob sta cle to the smooth and quick prep a ra tion ofplans and pro jects. One can have doubts about the gen u ine in ten tion ofcon sult ing NGOs on Na tional De vel op ment Plans (NDP) or strat e giesif the dead lines given for the NGOs’ re ac tions are three weeks (in clud -ing Christ mas and New Year hol i days) as in Es to nia, or three days –from Fri day to Mon day, as in Lat via. Pub lic par tic i pa tion on a pro ject’s

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General Remarks

level also shows a ma jor def i cit. The Bul gar ian Na tional Cen tre for Haz -ard ous Waste Pro ject is a good ex am ple where pub lic par tic i pa tion re -mains a for mal ex er cise with out sub stance (‘tick the box’ ap proach)when the con cerns of the most likely im pacted cit i zens are not se ri ouslytaken into con sid er ation.

NGO par tic i pa tion on In stru ment for Struc tural Pol icies forPre-Accession Aid (ISPA) and Spe cial Ac tion for Pre-Accession mea -sures for Ag ri cul ture and Ru ral De vel op ment (SAPARD) Mon i toringCom mit tees var ies from coun try to coun try. In some coun tries, NGOsare rep re sented on both ISPA trans port and ISPA en vi ron ment com -mit tees, in some coun tries only on en vi ron men tal ones or on none ofthem. A re mark able case was the one in Es to nia, where the Min is tries of En vi ron ment and Fi nance ac tu ally agreed on the NGO par tic i pant butthe Eu ro pean Com mis sion (EC) del e ga tion to Es to nia did not find itap pro pri ate to have NGOs as mem bers of en vi ron men tal Mon i toringCom mit tee.

We found sig nif i cant con fu sion and ob sta cles in the area of ac cess to in for ma tion which can be at trib uted to the lack of clear rules and guide -lines. We have ob served some pos i tive trends such as post ing strat egypa pers or even their drafts on the web site. How ever, it still de pends onthe good will of dif fer ent Min is tries and not on bind ing re quire ments.To ob tain in for ma tion is even more dif fi cult when it gets to the pro jectlevel.

Ex am ples from Hun gary are very il lus tra tive in this re spect. In thepro ject “Uti li sa tion of Na tional Wood Prop erty,” the pro ject pro moterre fused to pro vide any doc u ments re gard ing the pro ject on the groundthat it only cov ered tech ni cal as sis tance, and would there fore be of noin ter est to the NGO who re quested it. It is a rather in ter est ing ex am pleof a pro moter’s ar bi trary judge ment of what is and what is not in the in -ter ests of civil so ci ety. With clear rules on ac cess to in for ma tion such ar -bi trary de ci sions would not be pos si ble. In an other case, the pro moterof a haz ard ous waste de posit pro ject to be fi nanced un der Po land Hun -gary As sis tance in the Re struc turing of their Econ omies (PHARE) re -ferred Bankwatch to the Del e ga tion of the Eu ro pean Com mis sion,claim ing they would not be al lowed to re lease any pro ject-related doc u -ment with out the con sent of the EC Del e ga tion. As a re ply to our in -

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General Remarks

quiry on that rule, the Del e ga tion de nied that there would be suchpre con di tion.

Bind ing rules and com pli ance with them in the area of ac cess to in -for ma tion, trans par ency and pub lic par tic i pa tion should be a key el e -ment of pre-accession funds in or der to gain pub lic un der stand ing andsup port, im prove pre pared strat e gies and pro jects but also avoid ir reg u -lar i ties, mis use of money and even cor rup tion – such as the one de -scribed in de tail in the Slovakian case.

Qual ity and Ca pac ity As pectOb serving the whole pro cess it is quite strik ing how high the level of

con fu sion about the im ple men ta tion of pre-accession funds still is.How ever, it co mes from the side of the na tional au thor i ties as much asfrom the side of the EC.

There is a clear need for more ca pac ity build ing, the strength en ing of ad min is tra tion on all lev els and tech ni cal as sis tance. Pre-accessionfunds were in tended to be a learn ing pro cess for the can di date coun triesfor the fu ture uti li sa tion of struc tural and co he sion funds, how ever itseems like the in vest ments them selves be came the most im por tant as -pect of the whole pro cess. There is a clear need as well to strengthen theca pac ity of NGOs in those coun tries so that they can fully take part inthe pro cess and better mon i tor pre-accession funds.

From the as pect of ca pac ity and qual ity, an in ter est ing el e ment is therole and qual ity of work of some West ern con sult ing com pa nies help ing to pre pare pro grams, strat e gies and pro jects within the scope ofpre-accession funds. An il lus tra tion of this is a state ment from Mr.Jean-Marie Sayler, Acting Di rec tor of the ISPA pro gram, who statedthat there was no pro ject sub mit ted by the Bul gar ian Gov ern ment forthe ISPA fi nanc ing that was ac cepted by the EC with out prob lems. Thelow ca pac ity of the Min is try of En vi ron ment to de velop good pro jectswas men tioned in sev eral re ports of the EC. How ever, for the de vel op -ment of pro jects Bul garia usu ally takes money from the PHARE pro -gram and for eign con sul tants are hired to con duct fea si bil ity stud ies andEn vi ron men tal Im pact As sess ment (EIA) re ports. In this case, one

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General Remarks

should con sider that the re spon si bil ity for the low qual ity of pro jectsshould be shared also with con sul tant firm and the EC, as the funder ofthe pro jects. Sim i lar prob lems with not timely or in suf fi cient qual itywork of West ern con sul tan cies, lead ing to a poor im age of the coun tryas well as a waste of money, were re ported from Lat via as well. We cansee two prob lems here. One is the qual ity of work of some West ern con -sul tan cies, which is not suf fi cient and should be closely ver i fied. An -other prob lem is that money for tech ni cal as sis tance does not in creasethe ca pac ity of na tional au thor i ties to pre pare pro jects and man age EUfunds, but in stead ends up with a West ern con sul tant. This way there isnei ther knowl edge trans fer nor ca pac ity-building of the can di date coun -tries and the whole learn ing as pect of pre-accession funds is again ne -glected.

Po ten tial Neg a tive En vi ron men tal Im pactsFrom the en vi ron men tal point of view it is im por tant that

pre-accession funds be in line with the EU Sus tain able De vel op mentStrat egy and pro mote sus tain able de vel op ment and en vi ron men tallyfriendly so lu tions and not en dan ger the en vi ron ment. There fore strat e -gies and pro grams on which fi nanc ing from pre-accession funds isbased should be sub jected to Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment in asys tem atic man ner (which is not the case now, as it is done in only a fewcoun tries, on a ran dom ba sis). The long-term im pacts of ag ri cul turalchanges (fos tered by SAPARD) on bio-diversity should be as sessed andtaken into ac count, which has not been done. Trans port ISPA shouldcon trib ute to the de vel op ment of bal anced and en vi ron men tallyfriendly trans port sys tems and not to the ex pan sion of in di vid ual car us -age, as is the case now. In ad di tion, pub lic trans port pro jects should becon sid ered for fi nanc ing as con trib ut ing to gen eral EU ob jec tive of airqual ity pro tec tion and lim it ing of cli mate change. At the mo ment,air-pollution pre ven tion pro jects within the scope of pre-accessionfunds are marginalized in all of the coun tries. At a meet ing with NGOsin Hun gary in De cem ber 2001, the Programme Man ager ar gued thatthis is mostly due to the Com mis sion which, strangely, would find it dif -

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General Remarks

fi cult to man age air-pollution pre ven tion pro jects in a trans par ent man -ner.

Use ful en vi ron men tal pro jects are of ten small ones which do notful fil the EUR five mil lion min i mum thresh old set up for ISPA. A pos i -tive de vel op ment is that the Com mis sion has al lowed group ing of en vi -ron men tal pro jects to ful fil the EUR five mil lion lower limit, as we haveseen done in cases in Es to nia and Lith u a nia. While the limit may not beprob lem atic for a coun try like Po land, which can uti lise big ger pro jectsfor wa ter and wastewater treat ment plants in big ag glom er a tions with apro found en vi ron men tal ef fect, it does pose a prob lem to smaller coun -tries. Grouping pro jects al lows smaller coun tries to uti lise the moneyavail able to them from the ISPA en vi ron ment bud get line. How ever,pro ject group ing may also have an ad verse ef fect when, for ex am ple,con nect ing small set tle ments to ‘re gional sew age sys tem’ with sew agewa ter be ing pumped long dis tances is nei ther ef fec tive nor en vi ron men -tally friendly.

Pre-accession funds should ful fil the Com mu nity goal of in te gra tion of en vi ron men tal con cerns into pol i cies and prac tice. There fore, the sit -u a tion, such as the one with PHARE funds in Hun gary, seems dis turb -ing. Part of the PHARE bud get there will be de voted to re gionalde vel op ment, for which three ma jor pri or i ties have been de fined: in te -grated de vel op ment of set tle ments, road de vel op ment and en vi ron -men tal mea sures. How ever, the Com mis sion is press ing for a struc turewhere each re gion could only chose one of these pri or i ties and im ple -ment pro jects in that field. It sounds con tra dic tory to the prin ci ples ofin te gra tion and sus tain able de vel op ment to force peo ple to choose be -tween a better house, a better road or a better en vi ron ment.

Also, the po ten tial role of SAPARD fund ing in for est de struc tion iswor ri some. A list of fu ture SAPARD in vest ments in the for estry sec torin Slovakia in cludes mostly log ging and trans port ma chin ery and equip -ment for pri mary tim ber pro cess ing, while at the same time we see a bigin crease of log ging in Slovakia ac tu ally pushed by the Com mis sion. Sim -i larly wor ri some are the Ro ma nian plans to con struct more than 1000km of for estry roads for ex panded log ging.

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General Remarks

From par tic u lar pro jects in con flict with na ture pro tec tion,biodiversity or EU en vi ron men tal leg is la tion we can list among oth ersal ready men tioned Kresna gorge in Bul garia, the D8 motor way in theCzech Re pub lic, the A4 motor way pro ject in Po land, or a pro ject inHun gary clas si fied as “eco-tourism” which in cludes the con struc tion ofa ho tel in a pro tected and highly sen si tive area in the mid dle of theAggtelek Na tional Park (sic).

What is the Ul ti mate Goal? In the fol low ing coun try chap ters, we show the de vel op ment of

pre-accession fund im ple men ta tion, in clud ing cases based on spe cificpro jects to il lus trate def i cits in the above men tioned ar eas. We be lievethat pre-accession funds con sti tute a very im por tant as pect of the whole pro cess of en large ment, be cause of their in vest ment and learn ing as -pects and de moc racy build ing.

There fore, we find it dis turb ing that ac ces sion coun tries are threat -ened to have aid cut if they do not show enough ‘spend ing’ ca pac ity. Atthe same time, some mem ber states use this ar gu ment to jus tify their po -lit i cally based de ci sions of re duc ing cur rent and fu ture EU aid to newmem bers, thereby in tro duc ing the idea of ‘sec ond cat e gory’ states.

At the same time, the fi nan cial needs in the fields cov ered bypre-accession funds (for ex am ple, en vi ron men tal pro tec tion, ag ri cul ture and trans por ta tion) are tre men dous in all the ac ces sion coun tries. Insome cases, pro ce dures im posed on the ac ces sion coun tries are ex -tremely com pli cated (even if com pared with the EU pro ce dures re gard -ing struc tural funds e.g. SAPARD). There fore, it is not solely the fault of ac ces sion coun tries that they have not man aged to meet these pro ce -dures.

Many ac ces sion coun tries face the prob lem of lack of fi nan cial re -sources nec es sary to ful fil the EU re quire ments in the field of en vi ron -men tal pro tec tion. These coun tries will need to cover up to 90 per centof the costs for im ple men ta tion of the EU di rec tives. Cut ting fi nan cialsup port for this field would fur ther de lay the in te gra tion pro cess formany years. There fore, EU aid money is es sen tial for the new can di -dates. As sessing the ca pac ity of coun tries and cut ting the aid based on

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General Remarks

the first two years of learn ing ex pe ri ence seems like an un fair judge -ment. One should not pun ish a baby for not be ing able to walk, butrather teach the baby how to walk.

With the cur rent set up it seems to be a very true but also very wor ri -some de vel op ment of the last two years what one of the Com mis sionof fi cials told us un of fi cially: “at the end of the day, the ul ti mate goal foryour gov ern ments is to spend the money.”

What should be done to make sus tain able de vel op ment, learn ingand de moc racy build ing a main goal of pre-accession funds?

Gen eral rec om men da tions:• Pro jects fi nanced should be based on na tional sec toral pol i cies, as

well as na tional and re gional strat e gies and plans, which are sub -ject to Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment (SEA) and take intoac count sustainability in di ca tors. Also, the cur rently pre pared Na -tional De vel op ment Plans or Op er a tional Pro grams should beoblig a to rily sub ject to SEAs and should ful fil the sustainabilitycri te ria.

• Guide lines for pre-accession funds, es pe cially ISPA andSAPARD, should be re vised in the spirit of the EU Strat egy onSus tain able De vel op ment. Guide lines for fu ture Struc tural andCo he sion Funds should in te grate sustainability cri te ria.

• Trans par ency and pub lic par tic i pa tion in de ci sion-making shouldbe one of the key and oblig a tory rules for fund ing. The pub lic par -tic i pa tion pro cess can not be treated as an ob sta cle to smoothreali sa tion of pro jects and there fore con ducted in a su per fi cialman ner with the main goal to ‘tick the box’. It should be used toim prove the qual ity of the plans and pro jects and to build up anown er ship feel ing among cit i zens of can di date coun tries.

• In creased open ness and trans par ency from other co-financing in -sti tu tions, such as the Eu ro pean In vest ment Bank, should also bere quired.

• Know-how should be trans ferred, as well as re sources ded i catedto better prep a ra tion of pro jects and more ef fi cient uti li sa tion ofEU fund ing. Tech ni cal as sis tance and build ing ca pac ity of au -

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General Remarks

thor i ties on all lev els of ad min is tra tive or gani sa tion is at leastequally, if not more, needed than in vest ments in new high ways,es pe cially in the con text of fu ture uti li za tion of struc tural funds.

• Ca pac ity, qual ity of per for mance and the cred i bil ity of West erncon sult ing com pa nies help ing to pre pare pro grams, strat e gies and pro jects within the scope of pre-accession funds should beclosely scru ti nized to avoid de lays and the waste of re sources. Pri -or ity should be given to help ing the au thor i ties of the ac ces sioncoun tries to learn how to run the pro ce dures them selves.

• Re sources should be ded i cated to in creas ing NGO ca pac ity to be -come part of the pro cess.

Spe cifically for ISPA: • ISPA should en cour age the de vel op ment of sus tain able trans por -

ta tion sys tems in the ac ces sion coun tries, rather than fo cusmainly on the de vel op ment of Trans-European trans por ta tionnet works (TENs). As road trans por ta tion, fa voured by manygov ern ments in the ac ces sion coun tries, has neg a tive im pacts onhu man health and the en vi ron ment, the pro mo tion of pub lictrans por ta tion should be con sid ered as a main ISPA/trans por ta -tion pri or ity;

• ISPA fund ing should not fi nance pro jects which may de stroy na -ture pro tected ar eas or en dan ger bio-diversity

• As ex ist ing road in fra struc ture in ac ces sion coun tries re quires tre -men dous fi nan cial re sources, mod erni sa tion of old in fra struc tureshould be con sid ered as a more im por tant task than con struc tionof new roads.

• ISPA fund ing should also be el i gi ble for pub lic trans port pro jects, es pe cially in large cit ies, where in vest ments in pub lic trans por ta -tion would have a dou bly pos i tive ef fect – better trans port andbetter en vi ron ment due to in creased air qual ity;

• ISPA in vest ment in the waste sec tor should pro mote a com pre -hen sive ap proach to waste man age ment, aim ing at re duc ing tothe nec es sary min i mum waste dis posal, while at the same timepro mot ing se lec tive waste col lec tion, re use, re cy cling and com -post ing of bio waste. These ac tiv i ties should be oblig a to rily ac -

18

General Remarks

com pa nied by pub lic aware ness cam paigns. In cin er a tion shouldbe the least fa vour able so lu tion, used if nec es sary only as a lastpart of the whole sys tem.

• ISPA pro jects should be as sessed from the point of view of theiref fi ciency – namely achiev ing the high est en vi ron men tal im pactwith the most ef fec tive uti li za tion of money in vested (here weshould look not only into cur rent in vest ment but also into thewhole life-span of the pro ject, long term en vi ron men tal ef fects,amount of ben e fi cia ries).

Spe cifically for SAPARD:• SAPARD money should be used for or ganic farm ing, ru ral de vel -

op ment and agro-environmentally friendly pro jects, in stead ofsup port ing in ten si fied pro duc tion and food pro cess ing. There -fore each coun try should pre pare an agro-environment ac tionplan within the scheme of SAPARD;

• The SAPARD pro gram in ev ery coun try should be as sessed fromits po ten tial im pact on bio-diversity;

• The re quired lo cal co-financing level for ru ral de vel op ment andagro-environment pro jects should be de creased to makeSAPARD more eas ily ac ces si ble to smaller farms and busi nesses;

• In for ma tion about SAPARD pro ce dures should be eas ily ac ces si -ble and well known in the coun tries. To this end, pub lic in for ma -tion cam paign and trainings for farm ers should be en vis aged;

• SAPARD funds should not be used to in crease the de struc tion offor ests in the ac ces sion coun tries by fi nanc ing for estry roads de -vel op ment lead ing to in creased log ging and tim ber pro cess ing.

Spe cifically for PHARE:PHARE funds should be used to a large ex tent for:• build ing the ca pac ity and strength en ing na tional au thor i ties on all

ad min is tra tive lev els, so that they can better man age EU aid;• help ing to es tab lish mon i tor ing and eval u a tion mech a nisms as an

in te grated part of all pol icy pro grams and in stru ments to pro videqual ity con trol;

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General Remarks

• help ing to es tab lish feed back mech a nisms where the mon i tor ingand eval u a tion be come a ba sis for on-going as sess ment of fu turefund ing al lo ca tion;

• In vest ment pro jects, if fi nanced out of PHARE, should be part of sec toral pro grams and un dergo En vi ron men tal Im pact As sess -ments;

• PHARE fund ing should not fi nance pro jects which may de stroynat u ral pro tected ar eas or en dan ger bio-diversity.

20

General Remarks

Bulgaria

IntroductionIn the pre vi ous re port for the pre-accession funds in Bul garia, we

stressed the need for more pub lic par tic i pa tion and en hanced ac cess toin for ma tion. Using ex am ples from EU fi nanced pro jects; we show what the level of pub lic in volve ment is and how it can af fect the qual ity of thepro ject.

More than half a year later, we have not seen im prove ment. Pub licin volve ment is pro vided, ac cord ing to the EU pre-accession funds in -ten tions, but in Bul garia pro jects are done in con tra dic tion with the EUphi los o phy: to take into con sid er ation the lo cal cir cum stances and thespe cial ist’s as sess ments; and to in form con cerned groups for the pos si -ble so cial and en vi ron men tal ef fects. Mon i toring the pro ject “Na tionalCen ter for Haz ard ous Waste Treat ment,” de scribed later, we learned anew les son in de moc racy, that sev eral thou sand peo ple pro test ing is nota valu able ar gu ment against the for mally con ducted Pub lic Dis cus sionof the EIA re port.

An other is sue that we will con tinue to il lus trate in this re port is theques tion able sustainability of the pro jects, pro posed and fi nanced un der the ISPA pro gram. In the first brief ing, we wrote that the list of the pro -jects was de vel oped long be fore ap proval of the Na tional Strat egies forISPA (for the trans port and en vi ron men tal sec tor). The ar gu ment wasthat most of the pro jects are part of the Sec toral Strat egies, ap provedear lier. In ves ti gating these Sec toral strat e gies we found out that: firstlyall strat e gies are de vel oped with out any pub lic dis cus sion; and sec ondlythese Strat egies have ob jec tives and ac tiv i ties, but usu ally for a dif fer entdu ra tion than 2000-2006. This is the case with the Na tional Strat egy forWaste Man age ment 1999 – 2002, which is an of fi cial at tach ment to theEn vi ron men tal ISPA Strat egy. Un til the end of 2001, the pro gram failed to achieve many of its ob jec tives. At the same time Mr. Jean-MarieSeyler, Acting Di rec tor of the ISPA pro gram, re ferred to it as ar gu ments for jus ti fi ca tion of the pro ject “Na tional cen ter for Haz ard ous WasteTreat ment.” Thus, we see the need for pe ri od i cal re vi sion of the ISPA

21

Bulgaria

Strat egies and the List of pro jects. If in 2002 some of them are out datedwhat will hap pen in 2006?

SAPARD Program DevelopmentThe last half-year was a start ing pe riod for the SAPARD pro gram in

Bul garia. Three mea sures were opened for ap pli cant pro jects: • in vest ments in ag ri cul tural hold ings; • de vel op ment and di ver si fi ca tion of eco nomic ac tiv i ties, pro vi sion

of mul ti ple ac tiv i ties and al ter na tive in come; • im prov ing the pro cess ing and mar ket ing of ag ri cul tural and fish -

ery prod ucts. A SAPARD mon i tor ing com mit tee was cre ated. It con sists of 15

mem bers; nine of them are so-called NGO rep re sen ta tives (syn di cates,trade un ions, mu nic i pal ity un ions and so on). Only one is an en vi ron -men tal NGO rep re sen ta tive. There are also work ing groups for eachmea sure that in clude NGO rep re sen ta tives. The work ing groups serveas ad vi sors for the high est body – the Mon i toring Com mit tee.

The Mon i toring Com mit tee ap proves sec ond ary leg is la tion con -nected with the SAPARD mea sures, changes in it and will mon i tor theim ple men ta tion of the pro gram as whole. The NGO rep re sen ta tiveshave the right to pro pose changes in secondary leg is la tion. The prac ticeshows that their state ments are taken into ac count as more pro fes sionalfor the mea sures as de vel op ment of en vi ron men tally friendly ag ri cul -tural prac tices and ac tiv i ties, and pro tec tion and con ser va tion of ru ralher i tage and cul tural tra di tions. The mem bers of the Mon i toring Com -mit tee are pro vided with full ac cess to all doc u ments re lated to theSAPARD pro gram.

The main con clu sions about the run ning of the SAPARD pro gramun til now are: small and me dium sized busi nesses do not gain from theSAPARD pro gram. The ob jec tive rea son is the lack of ca pac ity to ful fillall for mal cri te ria. In many of the cases, it is due to lack of knowl edgeabout the pro gram. The pop u lar iza tion cam paign con ducted at the endof 2000 by the Min is try of Ag ri cul ture and For ests did not seem to cover

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Za Zemiata

all in ter ested par ties. The cam paign in cluded pre sen ta tions in theall-regional cen ters and bro chure dis tri bu tion.

At the same time, there is mis in for ma tion com ing from the re gionalde part ments of the SAPARD fund. In some cases, in for ma tion wasgiven that the money from the pro gram was fin ished. The un con cernedat ti tude to the im ple men ta tion of the pro gram and bu reau cracy shouldbe con sid ered as a main weak ness of the lo cal level man age ment of thepro gram. There are also some sub jec tive rea sons for de creased ac cess to the pro gram for small and me dium sized busi nesses: usually there aredif fi cul ties with loan tak ing in Bul garia or there is a psy cho log i cal bar rier for it. In ad di tion, the level of hid den busi ness is very high due to hightaxes.

ISPA Program ImplementationThere are three ar eas where we def i nitely need im prove ment con -

cern ing im ple men ta tion of the ISPA pro gram, ac cord ing to what Mr.Jean-Marie Sayler, Acting Di rec tor of the ISPA pro gram, stated at thetime of the last ISPA Mon i toring Com mit tee.

• Pub lic ity. Ef forts should be un der taken to cre ate a wider un der -stand ing of the aid com ing from the Eu ro pean Un ion. The gen -eral pub lic should be aware of the role of the EU in sup port ingBul garia in pre-accession pro cess. The only thing that the Bul gar -ian Im ple men ta tion Agency does in this di rec tion is to put astory board near to the pro ject site. The story board usu ally con -tains too gen eral in for ma tion for the pro ject.

• Timely in for ma tion. The in for ma tion for the sec ond ISPAMon i toring Committee meet ing was re ceived by the EC a weekbe fore. For the first meet ing NGO rep re sen ta tives did not re -ceive the Mon i toring sheets at all.

• Ca pac ity. Mr. Sayler stated that there is no pro ject sub mit ted bythe Bul gar ian Gov ern ment for ISPA fi nanc ing that was ac ceptedby the EC with out prob lems. The low ca pac ity of the Min is try ofEn vi ron ment to de velop good pro jects was men tioned in sev eralre ports of the EC. One of the meth ods of im prove ment, usu ally

23

Bulgaria

skipped by the Bul gar ian gov ern ment, is to use NGO ca pac ityand re sources. The prob lem with low qual ity pro ject also has an -other an gle. For the de vel op ment of pro jects, Bul garia usu allytakes money from the PHARE pro gram. As such, for eign con sul -tants are hired for con duct ing the fea si bil ity study and the EIA re -port. In this case we con sider that the re spon si bil i ties for the lowqual ity pro jects should be shared also with the con sul tant firmand the EC, as the funder of the pro jects.

In ad di tion to these three ar eas for im prove ment we con sider thatthe Com mis sion po si tion, writ ten by Mrs. Margot Wallstrom, in her let -ter con cern ing Kresna gorge pro tec tion in Bul garia, should be strictlyen forced: “the Com mis sion has re peat edly stressed that EU pre-accession in stru -ment will only ac cept fi nanc ing pro jects that are in com pli ance with the with the EUen vi ron men tal acquis. This ap plies, in par tic u lar, to the need to as sess the im pact ofthe pro ject on the en vi ron ment based on pro vi sions sim i lar to those in cluded in theEIA di rec tives of the EU.” (let ter from Sep tem ber 13, 2001). The cases de -scribed be low show that this state ment is still empty word ing in Bul -garia.

ISPA ProjectsThe cases pre sented here are pro jects that are or will be ap pli cants

for ISPA fi nanc ing. They are still un der prep a ra tion but we choose tomon i tor them as we con sider that this is the most im por tant stage in thepro jects’ life cy cle. Pub lic par tic i pa tion is cru cial dur ing pro ject prep a ra -tion as it can lead to better pub lic ity and pro ject qual ity im prove ment.This is the stage were pub lic con cerns can re ally be taken into ac count.

The sec ond rea son for the choice was that the PHARE pro gram fi -nances the fea si bil ity study of both pro jects, which means that we canmon i tor the for eign con sul tant per for mance and the com pli ance of thepro jects with the EU acquis.

“Na tional Cen ter for Haz ard ous Waste Treat ment” Pro jectThe PHARE pro ject fi nanced the fea si bil ity study of the pro ject

“Con struc tion of the Na tional Cen ter for Haz ard ous Waste Treat -ment.” In 2000, the ten der for the pro ject was won by the con sor tium of Dan ish firms “Kemkontrol” and “Fishter.” The con tract in cludes: fea -

24

Za Zemiata

si bil ity study of the tech ni cal, eco nom i cal and fi nan cial pos si bil i ties forthe Na tional Cen ter Con struc tion; In for ma tion cam paign; Choice ofthe pro ject site; EIA re port; Prep a ra tion of the pre lim i nary pro ject, andthe ap pli ca tion doc u ments for the ISPA pro gram. The in ves tor of thepro ject is the Bul gar ian Min is try of En vi ron ment and Wa ter.

The con sul tant pro posed four sites as pos si ble pro ject sites for theNa tional Cen ter, out of 30 in the pre lim i nary in ves ti ga tion.

In Jan u ary and Feb ru ary of 2001, the Re gional En vi ron men tal Cen -ter for Cen tral and East ern Eu rope (REC)- Bul garia con ducted In for -ma tion cam paigns in four sites. The main aim of the cam paign was toin crease the lo cal cit i zens’ aware ness of the in cin er a tion fac tory and thewaste prob lems. A movie about a sim i lar cen ter in Den mark, in clud ingin cin er a tor, was shown to lo cal ad min is tra tion, me dia and cit i zens. Abro chure was dis trib uted. The re search among the peo ple that at tendedpre sen ta tion was done with the main ques tion: Do you know about thePro ject? Ac cord ing to the REC re search at the time of the in for ma tioncam paign, peo ple in the four re gions had a pos i tive at ti tude to the pro -ject.

Later, two of the pro posed sites fell off due to lo cal pro tests againstthe con struc tion of the Haz ard ous Waste Treat ment in stal la tion ontheir ter ri tory. The third site, near the vil lage of Beglej, was ob vi ouslyun suit able as it was sit u ated in a lime stone re gion. Ac cord ing to Bul gar -ian leg is la tion, a land fill can not be built in a lime stone area. Nev er the -less, it re mained as an of fi cial al ter na tive lo ca tion.

In the be gin ning of May 2001 the pro ce dure for dis cus sion of thepre lim i nary EIA re port was opened. Pub lic hear ings on the re port werecon ducted on May 20 in Radnevo1 and on May 21 in Beglej. Ap proval of the EIA re port by the Ex pert Coun cil of the Min is try of En vi ron mentand Waters came on May 22, one day af ter the pub lic meet ings. In thisway the right of the par tic i pants in the Pub lic hear ings to sub mit state -ments was vi o lated and the weak nesses of the EIA re port were foundout dur ing the Pub lic dis cus sions. At the end of May, the pro ject wassub mit ted to ISPA for fi nanc ing.

25

Bulgaria

His tory of Pub lic In volve mentAf ter the first pre sen ta tion was made in Feb ru ary by REC in the

town of Radnevo, a sec ond round of pre sen ta tions was con ducted inApril. Thus, for the first time the af fected cit i zens from the vil lages ofKovachevo, Pet Mogili, Radecki, and Novoselec were in formed aboutthe pro ject. Lo cal cit i zens re acted neg a tively to the pro posal of such in -stal la tion be ing built in the re gion, and left the pre sen ta tion. In stead oflook ing for the rea sons be hind their neg a tive at ti tude, lo cal au thor i tiesand pro ject lead ers ac cused lo cal cit i zens of be ing ill man nered. Thus,the pro ject de vel op ment con tin ued with out any pub lic in volve ment.

On May 20, 2001, at a pub lic hear ing on part of the EIA pro ce dure,there were no lo cal cit i zens from the af fected vil lages of Kovachevo, Pet Mogili, Radecki, Novoselec and Mlekarevo pres ent, ex cept the mu nic i -pal au thor i ties. Peo ple from Kovachevo stated that they were not in -formed of the meet ing; nei ther were they aware of the pur pose andim por tance of it.

In Au gust, peo ple from Kovachevo formed a civil com mit tee andcol lected 408 sig na tures (from around 580 res i dents with vot ing powerin the vil lage) against the con struc tion of the Cen tre for Haz ard ousWaste. With the help of the Stara Zagora re gion gov er nor, MariaNeikova, the pe ti tion was sub mit ted to the Bul gar ian Par lia ment. Twomeet ings with the lo cal au thor i ties and par lia men tar i ans fol lowed. Peo -ple from Kovachevo were in formed that the pro ject was in a very ad -vanced stage, and that it was im pos si ble to stop or even de bate. Inad di tion, they were told that it was better to agree to ben e fit from thepro ject.

In con nec tion with the fi nal EIA, the Ex pert Coun cil of the Min is try of En vi ron ment was in formed of the lo cal cit i zens’ pe ti tion. With outcon sid er ing their ar gu ments, the Ex pert Coun cil made a de ci sion to al -low pro ject reali sa tion. One month af ter the sig na ture of the ap proval of the de ci sion, the lo cal cit i zens were for mally asked for their ar gu ments.At that meet ing, the Dep uty Min is try of En vi ron ment sev eral timesstated that NGOs had ma nip u lated the lo cal pop u la tion.

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Za Zemiata

Now there are two more lo cal cit i zens’ pe ti tions against the pro jectfrom the Pet mogili vil lage – 726 peo ple and from Novoselec vil lage –493. The 20 000 peo ple work ing in the nearby Termal Power Plant com -plex “Marica Iztok” and in the ex trac tion en ter prise “Mini MaricaIztok” Ltd. also con sider that a new pub lic hear ing should be con ducted as they have never been in formed about the pro ject.

In ad di tion to the lo cal cit i zens’ con cerns, the NGOs’ po si tion wasto tally ne glected by the Bul gar ian au thor i ties. At the end of 2000,NGOs for the first time stated the need for a pre lim i nary in ves ti ga tionof the di oxin con tam i na tion around the fu ture site to be con ducted.Two state ments on the EIA re ports were sub mit ted, de scrib ing the lackof al ter na tive so lu tion for treat ment and in suf fi ciency of the health riskstudy as main prob lems with the pro ject. No re sponse was re ceived dur -ing the EIA pro ce dure with ex pla na tion why the NGOs’ ar gu mentswere not taken into ac count.

On Sep tem ber 10, 2001, based on the prob lems with the Na tionalCen ter for Haz ard ous Waste Treat ment pro ject, an ap peal to the ISPApro gram was sub mit ted, signed by 74 or ga ni za tions from 28 coun tries.They asked for a re view of ISPA ob jec tives and pol icy in waste man age -ment in Bul garia and for em pha sis on pro jects that pre vent waste gen er -a tion and are en vi ron men tally safe.

“The Bul gar ian au thor i ties have given cer tain as sur ances” for “fullpub lic con sul ta tion in line with the EU Di rec tive on EIA” ac cord ing tothe an swer of Mr. Jean-Marie Seyler, Acting Di rec tor of the ISPA pro -gram, to the NGOs Open Let ter. Thus, the Bul gar ian Min is try of En vi -ron ment ac cepts the EIA pro ce dure as final ised; nev er the less, theCom mis sion con sid ers the pro ject as not ready and will not fi nance it in2001. The Com mis sion also pro posed fur ther in ves ti ga tion to be madefor the di oxin con tam i na tion risk.

In con clu sion, we could n’t find how the in ves tor ben e fits from for -mally con ducted pub lic dis cus sions. The Min is try of En vi ron ment didnot re ceive the grant in 2001. The ap proval of the Na tional Cen tre con -struc tion was made in vi o la tion of the Bul gar ian Law for Pro tec tion ofEn vi ron ment and now there is a law suit against the de ci sion. Lo cal cit i -zens have the feel ing that their opin ion was ne glected and will op poseany con struc tion in the re gion. The Eu ro pean Com mis sion has gained

27

Bulgaria

an im age of a sup porter of “dirty” pro jects, as the fi nanc ing com ingfrom ISPA was of ten used as a pres sur ing el e ment.

Kresna Gorge Case The Gov ern ment of Bul garia is plan ning to build the “Struma”

Motor way in South west Bul garia, part of cor ri dor No 4 con nect ingDresden – Bu da pest – So fia – Is tan bul, with a branch So fia –Thessalonica. Fi nan cial mem o randa from 1998 and 1999 of thePHARE Cross Bor der Co op er a tion pro gram fi nance the pro ject “E-79De tailed de sign of motor way So fia-Kulata.” The pro ject in cludes prep a -ra tion of a fea si bil ity study, EIA, de tailed de sign and ten der dos sier forthe motor way So fia-Kulata (con sist ing of two motor ways -motor way“Ljulin” and motor way “Struma”). The to tal amount of the grant is 3342 450 Euro. On Sep tem ber 1, 1999, a ten der pro ce dure for the “E-79De tailed de sign of motor way So fia-Kulata” pro ject was opened. Thecan di dates were six firms from It aly, United King dom and Den mark.An Ital ian firm, SPEA Ingegneria Europea won the ten der and the con -tract was signed on March 9, 2000, with a 20-month im ple men ta tion pe -riod.

The Terms of Ref er ence, writ ten by the Road Ex ec u tive Agency tothe Ital ian com pany SPEA stated that the de sign should be made fol -low ing the ex ist ing route (E-79). Thus, the “Struma” motor way isplaned to pass through the whole length of the Kresna gorge, de stroy ing it.

The Kresna gorge is a CORINE Biotopes site (Site CodeF00002500) of out stand ing biodiversity and land scape value, planned to be in cluded in the EMERALD net work, and later on into the NATURA 2000 net work. The gorge is also clas si fied as a global or ni tho log i cal im -por tant site (code num ber BGN03) ac cord ing to the cri te ria of BirdLife. The “Tissata” Re serve (CORINE sub-site F00002501) is a site ofglobal con ser va tion im por tance rep re sen ta tive for the Med i ter ra neanzone. The Kresna gorge is 17 km long and very nar row, which makes itpar tic u larly vul ner a ble to any in fra struc ture de vel op ment.

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Since the start of the pro ject prep a ra tion in 1997, NGOs have raisedtheir con cerns in front of the Min is try of En vi ron ment and Wa ters, theMin is try of Re gional De vel op ment and Pub lic Works and the Road Ex -ec u tive Agency and de manded that an al ter na tive route-bed be de vel -oped.

In the be gin ning of 2000, af ter SPEA started to im ple ment the pro -ject, NGOs sent sev eral let ters and or gan ised a se ries of meet ings withall re spon si ble in sti tu tions. The main aim was to pro vide the im ple -ment ing agen cies with the data for the im por tance of the KresnaCORINE site and to de mand an al ter na tive route-bed de sign be in -cluded in the Terms of Ref er ence of SPEA. NGO con cerns were nottaken into ac count at all.

In Sep tem ber, NGOs sent a let ter to mem bers of the Eu ro pean Par -lia ment, rep re sen ta tives of the Eu ro pean Com mis sion and the Del e ga -tion of the EC in Bul garia, ap peal ing for sup port for al ter na tiveso lu tions. Af ter a ques tion from Min is try of En vi ron ment par lia men tar -ian Mr. Eric Meijer and a let ter from the Di rec tor Gen eral (DG) En vi -ron ment, the Del e ga tion of the EC in Bul garia or gan ised two meet ingsof the in ter ested par ties in No vem ber 2000. A de ci sion was taken therethat the Terms of Ref er ence to SPEA in clude de vel op ment of al ter na -tive route-beds. Sev eral days later SPEA came with two “al ter na tives,”con sist ing of a two-page de scrip tion and sev eral maps.

Later on, an En vi ron men tal Im pact As sess ment re port was sub mit -ted to the Min is try of En vi ron ment. The screen ing of the DG En vi ron -ment showed that the EIA re port is not suf fi cient. Thus, the EIA wasre turned by the Min is try.

In July 2001, at a meet ing with the Road Ex ec u tive Agency andSPEA, the Ex ec u tive Di rec tor of Agency, Mr. Rodopmanov, stated that these al ter na tives would not be de vel oped fur ther, as they are too ex -pan sive. Thus, the Agency gave the non-written task to SPEA to de signthe dou bling of the ex ist ing road in the gorge. This part of StrumaMotor way will not have high way stan dards and will have lower speedlim its (60-90 km/h). Mr. Rodopmanov also de clared that this al ter na tive is con sid ered to be the most ap pro pri ate so lu tion to the prob lem withthe en vi ron ment.

29

Bulgaria

In May 2001, a group of en vi ron men tal NGOs sub mit ted a pro posal for des ig nat ing the Kresna gorge as a Pro tected area, which was con sid -ered as ex pe di ent by the Min is try of En vi ron ment and Wa ters. The fulldoc u men ta tion for the pro posal, in line with the Bul gar ian Pro tectedArea Law and signed by ten en vi ron men tal NGOs, was sub mit ted onOc to ber 22, 2001.

In No vem ber 2001, a new En vi ron men tal Im pact As sess ment re -port was sub mit ted by Road Ex ec u tive Agency. On De cem ber 11, 2001, the EIA pro ce dure for the “Struma” Motor way pro ject was opened bythe Min is try, with out tak ing into ac count the con tra dic tion with the on -go ing pro ce dure for des ig na tion of the Kresna Pro tected Area.

The EIA re port fails to make a com plex com par i son of all five al ter -na tive route-beds for the Kresna CORINE site re gion. As the Ex ec u tive Road Agency gives pri or ity to the con struc tion into the Kresna gorge,the con sul tant did not de velop in de tails the routes out side theCORINE site. How ever, this is not pointed out as a weak ness in theEIA re port. In this case, there is a clear vi o la tion of pro vi sions of ar ti cle6 of the “Hab i tats” Di rec tive 92/43/EEC. “In par tic u lar, an ex am i na tion of pos si ble al ter na tive so lu tions and mit i ga tion mea sures may make it pos si ble to as cer -tain that, in the light of such so lu tion or mit i ga tion mea sures, the plan or pro ject willnot ad versely af fect the in teg rity of the site”2.

Fur ther more, the EIA re port, funded with PHARE CBC pro grammoney, also has se ri ous weak nesses and lacks in for ma tion re gard ing as -sess ment of the im pact on the en vi ron ment, ac cord ing to EU Di rec tives and In ter na tional Con ven tions. The EIA re port does not make any as -sess ment of the threats of elim i na tion of nat u ral hab i tats and spe cieshab i tats in cluded in the Bern Con ven tion, the Hab i tats Di rec tive (EC92/43) and the Birds Di rec tive (EC 79/409). The EIA re port makes noes ti mates about the limit val ues for the pro tec tion of the eco sys tems forsul phur di ox ide and ni tro gen ox ides, limit val ues for lead and PM10(Coun cil Di rec tive 1999/30/EC) and limit val ues for ozone (Coun cilDi rec tive 1992/72/EEC).

Around two years af ter the EU in volve ment as a party to the pro ject“E-79 De tailed de sign of motor way So fia-Kulata” it is ob vi ous that pro -ject does not com ply with EU acquis. At the same time, it is dif fi cult toiden tify who is the re spon si ble in sti tu tion for that. Thus, we con sider

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that the fol low ing steps should be taken so that the Com mis sion’s po si -tion of not fi nanc ing pro jects which vi o late EU leg is la tion will be en -forced:

• In ves ti ga tion of the suf fi ciency of the de vel oped al ter na tives andan au dit of the PHARE money al lo ca tion from the point of viewof the qual ity of fi nanced pro jects;

• Screening of the EIA re port and EC state ment on it; and• Sup port for the de vel op ment of al ter na tives out side the Kresna

CORINE site, which will save the valu able biodiversity of the ter -ri tory.

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Czech Republic

IntroductionRe gard ing pub lic in volve ment, the Czech path to the EU has been a

con tin u ously rocky one since the prep a ra tion of the Na tional De vel op -ment Plan and Op er a tional Programmes be gan in 1998. The end of Oc -to ber 2002 is the dead line for sub mis sion of the Joint Re gionalOp er a tional Plan to the Czech Cab i net, while the Na tional De vel op -ment Plan should be com pletely ready by the end of 2002.

Prep a ra tion of the NDP re quired sev eral sub se quent steps: A. Elab o ra tion of Re gional De vel op ment Strat egies for sep a rate

No men cla ture of Ter ri to rial Units for Sta tis tics (NUTS) III; B. Elab o ra tion of a com plex Strat egy of Na tional De vel op ment

for Czech Re pub lic; C. Elab o ra tion of Re gional (NUTS II) and Sec toral Con sul ta tion

Doc u ments, which be came the ba sis for the sec toral part of theNDP; and

D. Elab o ra tion of the NDP and its de tailed ver sion in the form of Re gional and Sec toral Op er a tional Pro grams (ROPs and SOPs).

The role of the co or di na tor of the plan prep a ra tion be longs to theMin is try of Lo cal De vel op ment via the Na tional Pro gram Com mit teefor Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion (NPC-ESC). The Mon i toring Com -mit tee and Na tional Co or di nating Group were also in volved.

NGOs man aged to get one rep re sen ta tive onto each of theNPC-ESC, Mon i toring Com mit tee and Na tional Co or di nating Group.As nei ther meet ings of these bod ies, nor notes from them are pub lic,NGO rep re sen ta tives are usu ally the only ones from whom it is pos si ble to ob tain any in for ma tion.

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Assessment of Environmental Impacts of the NDPPar al lel with the NDP work, a Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment

pro cess for the NDP be gan in July 1999. The fi nal as sess ment, datedJan u ary 2000, states that sus tain able de vel op ment prin ci ples are not suf -fi ciently in te grated into the NDP and stresses the need to sup port stron -ger pub lic in volve ment. How ever, sustainability prin ci ples based onthis ex-post eval u a tion were merely men tioned in the in tro duc torychap ter of the last draft of the NDP, and were not in te grated into thedoc u ment.

This fact was also re flected by the EC, which in its re cent, crit i calAp praisal re port of the Czech NDP draft (dated Feb 2002) says that: “an as sess ment to which ex tent the Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment (SEA) fol lowsthe re quire ments of Regulation no. 1260/1999, Ar ti cle 41 is not pos si ble on the ba -sis of the lit tle in for ma tion avail able. A sum mary of the study should be pro vided with ref er ence to the en vi ron ment im pacts ana lysed as well as how the con clu sions for theSEA have been in cor po rated in the NDP. Fur ther clar i fi ca tion is also nec es sary onwhether the SEA has been car ried out for this year’s NDP or for last year’s.”

This cri tique is very much con sis tent with the one pro vided toBrussels by NGOs. It is ap par ent that Czech au thor i ties do not have asys tem atic ap proach to wards the En vi ron men tal Assessment and pub -lic in volve ment and as a re sult the coun try’s re port to Brussels con tainsrather un clear lan guage in or der to hide the pro ce dural gaps.

As the prep a ra tions of the last draft of the NDP are un der way, thereis again a chance to in cor po rate for mer SEA re quire ments into it. AndNGOs will have to stick to it, as this might be the only chance for thepub lic to in flu ence the plan. Ac cord ing to the re cent in for ma tion, therewill not be a new SEA car ried for the NDP, in spite of the fact that it issup posed to be a sig nif i cantly changed doc u ment in com par i son to thecur rent draft. In stead, the SEA is planned for the Joint Re gional Op er a -tional Plan (JROP) and Sec toral Op er a tional Programmes (SOPs), de -spite the planned set up of these re cently be ing put into doubt.

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Operational ProgramsOr i ginally, there was an idea that, in or der to re ceive EU fund ing,

more de tailed elab o ra tion of the NDP pri or i ties should be achievedthrough eight Re gional Op er a tional Programmes (ROPs) and six Sec -toral Op er a tional Programmes (SOPs). The ROPs would cover all theNUTS II re gions in the coun try, while the SOPs would be pre pared forthe fol low ing sec tors: in dus try, trans port and tele com mu ni ca tion, hu -man re sources, en vi ron ment, multifunction ag ri cul ture and ru ral de vel -op ment, and tour ism.

The ROPs and SOPs were sup posed to be ready by the end of 2001and in most cases (ex cept for trans port and en vi ron ment) they were.How ever, by the end of 2001, the Min is try of Lo cal De vel op ment cameup with a pro posal to cre ate a Joint ROP (JROP), which wouldstrengthen cen tral su per vi sion over EU re sources and im prove its al lo -ca tion. The EC wel comed this at ti tude, and, more over, in its Feb 2002ap praisal re port it has rec om mended fur ther cru cial changes in thewhole pre pa ra tory set-up: as sess the ne ces sity of hav ing three sep a rateSec toral Op er a tional Pro grams for en vi ron ment, trans port and tour ism. The EC pro posal be hind this is to in cor po rate these top ics into thecom mon JROP.

It is ap par ent that such a pro posal is based on the EC eval u a tion ofthe Czech per for mance with the prep a ra tion of the NDP so far. The EC finds its draft to be an in con sis tent doc u ment and wor ries whether thecoun try is ca pa ble of us ing the re sources pro vided in an ef fec tive man -ner: “The pro gram ming struc ture as pre sented in the draft NDP seems to re flect alist ing of in di vid ual po si tions of the var i ous min is tries who would pre fer to take charge of their own struc tural funds programmes. To gether these in di vid ual po si tions are notal ways fully con sis tent and have im pli ca tions for pol icy in te gra tion and de fin ing thescope of the Op er a tional Pol icies”.

As a re sult, af ter four years of work, there is quite a high prob a bil itythat the whole pre pa ra tory pro cess for ROPs and SOPs will be dra mat i -cally re de fined in or der to plan such mea sures, which would avoid nu -mer ous over laps be tween sec toral and op er a tional programmes. Takinginto ac count the cur rent dis or der in the pro cess this might help to makethe pro cess more trans par ent. But NGOs are se ri ously con cerned that

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the weak po si tion of the pub lic will worsen as a re sult, be cause in arushed pro cess, the pub lic may end up be ing omit ted from the pro cessas “trou ble mak ers.”

This might sound too pes si mis tic if it was n’t for an ex pe ri ence fromthe ear lier stages of the Op er a tional Pro ce dures prep a ra tions, whenpub lic in volve ment in the work ing groups that func tioned un der the Re -gional Com mit tees (in fra struc ture and en vi ron ment, econ omy, hu manre sources, ag ri cul ture and coun try side) was not sup ported by the Min is -try of Lo cal De vel op ment. In some re gions, NGOs man aged to get onerep re sen ta tive into each of the work ing groups, while in oth ers not a sin -gle NGO was granted rep re sen ta tion. Only three out of eight CzechNUTS II re gions were doc u mented as at tain ing rel a tively sat is fac torypub lic in volve ment.

At the mo ment it is not pos si ble to as sess fu ture de vel op ment. Inthe be gin ning of March even state of fi cials do not know how the sit u a -tion with the JROP and SOPs will be sorted out. The ques tion ofwhether the EC rec om men da tions will be ac cepted by the Czech au -thor i ties or whether they will de cide to pro ceed ac cord ing to the busi -ness–as-usual sce nario re mains open.

SEA for ROPs and SOPsIn di vid ual ROPs were not sub mit ted to the EIA pro cess, al though,

thanks to NGO par tic i pa tion, one ROP was as sessed as a model case(NUTS II South west). The as sess ment was car ried out at the same timeas the pro gram ming pro cess it self, which led to two ef fects; (1) no de layin the pro cess meant that it was pos si ble to make cor rec tions to the planon an on go ing ba sis, and (2) on go ing im prove ments sig nif i cantly en -hanced the qual ity of the fi nal con cep tion. The SEA pro cess also at -tracted greater pub lic in volve ment than was ob served in other re gions.

With the newly cre ated JROP, which would have a much big gerscope and po ten tially also in clude trans port, tour ism and en vi ron ment, there is an agree ment among the au thor i ties and NGOs that the SEAwill be car ried out both for JROP and the re main ing SOPs. In a min i malop tion, SOPs should cover in dus try, hu man re sources de vel op ment and

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ag ri cul ture, at a max i mum the SOPs for en vi ron ment, trans port, andtour ism will be as sessed as well.

ISPATo date, the over all co or di na tion and eval u a tion of EU fund ing for

struc tural change (ISPA, SAPARD and the por tion of PHARE fo cus ing on eco nomic and so cial co he sion) has been ex e cuted by NPC-ESC andMon i toring Com mit tee. In both cases, NGOs have one rep re sen ta tive.As a cen trally al lo cated fund, aimed at large in fra struc ture pro jects in the field of en vi ron ment and trans port, ISPA fund ing in the Czech Re pub -lic has gone to ward wa ter man age ment and trans port net works.

The stra te gic na tional doc u ment for the ISPA-Transport Sec torcon tains 34 pro jects: 12 rail way, 18 road and motor way, two Prague Air -port and two Labe river nav i ga tion pro jects. The pro jected to tal costs of these pro jects to tal EUR 1,4 bil lion, while the max i mum ISPA con tri bu -tion in 2000-2006 can only reach ap prox i mately EUR 250 mil lion (halfof the ex pected 5,5 – 8 per cent of the to tal ISPA bud get). The otherEUR 250 mil lion is to go for wastewater treat ment. Due to the fact thatthere is a lack of the wa ter sec tor pro jects el i gi ble for EU fund ing (asmost of the big mu nic i pal i ties have pri vat ized their wa ter schemes,which sub se quently ex cludes them from the con sid er ation for fund ing),less money was al lo cated to the “en vi ron men tal” part. To keep theISPA in vest ment bal anced, the EC has an nounced that the trans portmoney can not ex ceed that for the en vi ron ment (and vice versa), there -fore the fi nal amount re ceived by the Czech Re pub lic might get sig nif i -cantly smaller.

Most likely, some of the ISPA pro jects will be co-financed by EIBloans, par tic u larly those on motor way con struc tion. There are greatcon cerns that the EU po lit i cal body ex er cises in suf fi cient con trol overthe EU fi nan cial arm, the EIB, which sys tem at i cally pre vents the pub licfrom par tic i pa tion in de ci sion mak ing at the pro ject pre pa ra tory stages.

Some of the trans port pro jects in the Czech Re pub lic, which are part of Trans port In fra struc ture Needs As sess ment Scheme with po ten tialfor co-financing from ISPA, are very con tro ver sial in na ture:

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E. The D8/A17 motor way planned be tween Prague and Dresden would pass through the Ceske Stredohori/Czech Mid dle Moun -tains Pro tected Land scape Area (EIB loan) and East ern KrusneHory Na ture Park (re quest for ISPA fund ing), po ten tially in con -flict with the Hab i tat Di rec tive.

F. In the realm of wa ter ways, the planned con struc tion ofdams/weirs be tween Strekov and Hrensko is in con flict with na -ture pro tec tion mea sures for the Elbe River.

G. Also, par tic u lar sec tions of the Prague motor way ring mightraise cer tain con flicts with na ture pro tec tion mea sures.

In the first two pro jects, pub lic and en vi ron men tal con cerns werebull dozed by the in ter ests of the con struc tion lobby, sup ported by theMin is try of Trans port.

Public Involvement in ISPAAlong with the prin ci pal co or di nat ing bod ies, the ISPA body cre -

ated Working Groups to pre pare sec tor strat e gies in the fields of en vi -ron ment and trans port, pro pose pri or ity pro jects, pro mote theirprep a ra tion and im ple men ta tion and co or di nate with other ac tiv i ties inthe sec tor. While one Working Group ex ists within the Min is try of En -vi ron ment, the sec ond was placed un der the Min is try of Trans port. TheMin is try of En vi ron ment of fered NGO rep re sen ta tives seats on theirISPA Working Group. When such a re quest for seats in the ISPATrans port Working Group was de liv ered to the Min is try of Trans port, it was ex plained to the NGOs that: “The work ing group serves only as an ad vi -sory body of the vice-minister of trans port and there fore is cre ated only from the rep re -sen ta tives of our min is try.”

The Min is try’s po si tion has not changed in spite of the let ter of Mr.Franco, the ISPA di rec tor within DG Regio (dated January 2001), which sug gests: “...that we – both the ISPA Di rec tor ate and you as Na tional ISPACo-ordinator – en hance the ex change of in for ma tion with NGOs and the pop u la tionat large...This re quires the de vel op ment of an ISPA in for ma tion and com mu ni ca tionstrat egy, in which the NGOs have their place, by your self in your coun tries as well asby the Com mis sion Del e ga tion and Head quar ters.

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On your side this could im ply i.e.• Pub lishing the Na tional ISPA Strat egy pa pers (some coun tries have al ready

done so);• Prep a ra tion of bro chures about the role of ISPA in the en large ment pro cess;• Pres enting on your web sites ISPA pro jects and their im pact;• Or gan ising in for mal meet ings with NGOs with a view to dis cuss ing in vest -

ment pri or i ties that will be in cor po rated in the strat egy pa pers.”The last two have never ma te ri al ized, mainly due to the convincion

of the Czech Trans port Min is try that ISPA pro jects are sim ply a part ofthe ap proved Trans port Net work De vel op ment Scheme, for which theSEA was car ried out in 1998. How ever, NGOs do not find this at ti tudeac cept able, be cause the Cab i net has com pletely ig nored the SEA ex pertteam rec om men da tions in fa vour of more en vi ron men tally and so ciallydam ag ing op tions, and has sup ported the Min is ter of Trans port’s busi -ness-as-usual op tion in stead.

SAPARDSAPARD in the Czech Re pub lic is sup posed to al lo cate ap prox i -

mately EUR 22 mil lion an nu ally. Though set for im ple men ta tion at thebe gin ning of 2000, the launch of SAPARD has seen more than a twoyear de lay. The Paying Au thor ity was ap proved by the EC only in au -tumn 2001, while the programme it self is to start from April 2002.

Pub lic in volve ment in the prep a ra tion of the SAPARD Plan wasmin i mal, mainly be cause of the un will ing ness of the Min is try of Ag ri cul -ture to in form and seek feed back from the pub lic. As in the case withISPA, the prep a ra tion of the SAPARD Plan failed to ful fil the part ner -ship prin ci ple.

SAPARD has four pri or i ties: A. In crease in com pet i tive ness of the ag ri cul tural and pro cess ing

in dus try (60,5 per cent); B. Sus tain able de vel op ment of the coun try side (34,3 per cent);

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C. Mea sures for set ting up con di tions for the full use of theprogramme (3,2 per cent); and

D. Tech ni cal aid from the EU (two per cent). Though they con tain some pos i tive el e ments, these mea sures are

too fo cused on build ing, con struc tion and equip ment to merit the ti tle“sus tain able de vel op ment of the coun try side.” It can be ex pected thatre sources for or ganic farm ing, agrotourism, re new able en ergy etc. willfall dra mat i cally short of those in vest ments di rected to ward more con -struc tion-oriented mea sures.

Plan for De tailed Al lo ca tion of SAPARD FundsWith re gard to the first pri or ity, which con cen trates on ar eas in

which the Czech Re pub lic re quests tem po rary ex emp tions from EUreg u la tions (cat tle and pig breed ing, stor age of fruits and veg e ta bles, ni -trates wa ter pol lu tion from ag ri cul tural sources), the fund ing will be dis -trib uted as fol lows:

A. Land use man age ment, con struc tion of ru ral roads, cre ation ofSys tems of Lo cal En vi ron men tal Sta bil ity, anti-erosion mea sures,land sur vey ing (19,7 per cent);

B. Mod erni sa tion of meat, milk and fish pro cess ing tech nol o gies,pro mo tion of re gional and or ganic ag ri cul ture prod ucts (16,2 per -cent) - the least of which will re ceive 20 per cent of this amount(3,24 per cent);

C. Im prove ment of cat tle and pig breed ing con di tions, im prove -ment of stor age ca pac ity for fruits and veg e ta bles, con struc tion of waste treat ment fa cil i ties in large breed ing grounds (15,8 per cent). Sup port of these pro jects will bring only lim ited re sults, be causethe re sources will not be suf fi cient to ful fil the given di rec tives(In stead, the sup port is sat is fac tory only for model pro jects). Inno way can this money solve the prob lems as so ci ated with in dus -trial breed ing; and

D. Food qual ity con trol and con sumer pro tec tion will re ceive 8,8per cent.

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The sec ond pri or ity (re con struc tion and de vel op ment of the coun -try side) will di rect the funds as fol lows:

A. Di ver si fi ca tion of eco nomic ac tiv i ties: de vel op ment of Smalland Me dium sized En ter prises (SMEs), tra di tional crafts, fam ilyfarms, agrotourism, the pro duc tion and use of bio mass, wastesep a ra tion and re-use, in for ma tion ser vices, etc. (15,8 per cent);

B. Re con struc tion of farm and res i den tial build ings and pub licand com mu nity fa cil i ties, res to ra tion of town squares, com mu -nity parks and wa ter res er voirs, etc. (10,4 per cent);

C. Con struc tion of ru ral in fra struc ture: re con struc tion of lo calroads, pub lic trans port, wa ter sew age and sup ply fa cil i ties, wastewa ter treat ment plants, and con struc tion of fa cil i ties for use of re -new able en ergy re sources and waste sep a ra tion, etc. (5,2 per cent); and

D. Sup port of sound man age ment. This mea sure is fo cused onlyon three pi lot Pro tected Land scape Areas: the White CarpathianMoun tains, Blanik and Moravian Carst. Within the year, twomore ar eas should be added to the list: Poodri and LitovelskePomoravi. This man age ment scheme will sup port only thosefarm ers who ac cept so-called agro-environmental com mit mentsfor a min i mum of five years (2,9 per cent).

Project Selection ProcessAgreed upon by each microregion’s lo cal au thor ity, the

Microregional De vel op ment Strat egy ex ists to sup port the de vel op ment of non-agricultural pro jects. Such strat e gies are sup posed to be pre -pared in co-operation with lo cal com mu ni ties, lo cal busi nesses, NGOsand the pub lic. They are in tended to be based upon the in di vid ual de vel -op ment strat egy of each vil lage. This con di tion led to an im pres sive uni -fi ca tion of vil lages into microregions and the speedy prep a ra tion of their de vel op ment strat e gies, de spite a lack of ex tant in di vid ual strat e gies.

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MonitoringThe Na tional Mon i toring Com mit tee and eight Re gional Mon i -

toring Com mit tees were es tab lished at the NUTS II lev els. The mem -bers of the committtees in clude Min is te rial and Paying agencyrep re sen ta tives, rep re sen ta tives of Re gional De vel op ment Agencies and those of NGOs. All the mem bers are ap pointed by the min is ter of lo calde vel op ment and min is ter of ag ri cul ture. The Mon i toring Com mit teein cludes dep uty min is ters, EC rep re sen ta tives, chairs of the eight Re -gional Mon i toring Committees, state of fi cials and also rep re sen ta tivesof some “spe cial ized” NGOs, such as the Ag ri cul tural Cham ber, Ru ralRe newal As so ci a tion, and Czech Na ture Pro tec tion Un ion. It will onlybe come clear when SAPARD starts if the in volve ment of NGOs in thisway helps the su per vi sion or if it is in stead only a for mal step, as manypeo ple ex pect.

PHARE 2000 +

PrioritiesEx cept for the cross-border co op er a tion, which rep re sents some 40

per cent of its money al lo ca tions, mostly at the level of smaller mu nic i -pal i ties, the PHARE Programme af ter the year 2000 fo cuses purely onpro jects with the po ten tial to im prove eco nomic and so cial co he sion.PHARE sup port should be closely linked to the pri or i ties of the Sec -toral Op er a tional Programmes and JROP. The EC rec om mends that inthe cur rent stage there should be a “one tar get re gion – one pro gram”at ti tude, which re quires closer co op er a tion of the rel e vant min is tries (lo -cal de vel op ment, in dus try, la bor, ed u ca tion). Cur rently, three NUTS IIre gions out of eight are in volved in the scheme as a pi lot re gions.

For Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion in 2002, the pri mary fo cus is in -sti tu tion build ing – the tar gets for such sup port will be the des ig natedPaying and Man aging Au thor ities and in ter me di ary bod ies in or der tode velop inter-ministerial co or di na tion, in crease their ad min is tra tive ca -pac ity, and en sure that the req ui site im ple men ta tion, pro gram ming,man age ment, mon i tor ing and au dit and con trol func tions are in place,

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as re quired in the rel e vant reg u la tions. Un der PHARE 2003, it is an tic i -pated that al most all the al lo ca tion for the Na tional Programme will beded i cated to in vest ment sup port in Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion.Here, the Sec toral Op er a tional Programmes, Hu man Re source De vel -op ment and In dus try are most rel e vant. It is ex pected that pro gram ming for PHARE 2003 will start in the sec ond half of 2002 and the fi nan cialpro posal will be ready in the first quar ter of 2003.

The ba sic di rec tion for all Eco nomic and So cial Cohesion in ter ven -tions is that schemes must ad dress a clear pri or ity within the NDP in hu -man re sources de vel op ment, pro duc tive sec tor in vest ment orbusi ness-related in fra struc ture. Cur rently though, the pri or i ties in allOp er a tional Programmes re main broad, the pre cise scope of Pro gramshas not been final ised, and there is a risk of over lap be tween mea sures.Re fining the pri or i ties and mea sures and sim pli fy ing the ob jec tives isseen as a key pri or ity in 2002.

Re gard ing Hu man Re source De vel op ment SOP, PHARE shouldcon cen trate on a max i mum of three pri or i ties, which are:

A. Em ploy ment & Hu man Re source adapt abil ity; B. So cial in te gra tion & Equal Op por tu nities; and C. De vel op ment of life long ed u ca tion, Re search and De vel op -

ment.All mea sures need to be ap praised in or der that they are in line with

Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion ac tiv i ties that can also be sup ported un -der PHARE. Po ten tial dis crep an cies should be high lighted.

The less fa voured prorities in the Hu man Re source De vel op mentSOP in clude:

D. civil so ci ety, so cial and cul tural needs of re gions; the sub stance of this pri or ity will be re ceiv ing over EUR nine mil lion ofPHARE sup port within four dif fer ent programmes be tween2001 and 2004, through small pro ject grant schemes. The ECsays, how ever, that fu ture Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion pro -gram ming is to fur ther en cour age the mainstreaming of civil so ci -ety is sues un der Pri or ities A, B or C. This is par tic u larly rel e vantfor so cial in clu sion of Roma and other mi nor ity groups, which

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should fo cus on spe cific ac tiv i ties (e.g. com mu nity de vel op ment). With this pri or ity, how ever, the EC sees a prob lem in a num ber of small pro jects, which al leg edly would make ful fil ment of the pri -or ity too dif fi cult;

E. op ti mi sa tion of the Func tion and Struc ture of the Health CareSys tem. This pri or ity is not el i gi ble for Eco nomic and So cial Co -he sion sup port ac cord ing to the Pro gramming Guide; and

F. mod ern is ing Pub lic Ad min is tra tion, this pri or ity is not el i gi blefor Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion sup port ac cord ing to the Pro -gramming Guide.

Future PHARE SupportPro duc tive Sec tor In vest ment will fo cus on in ten si fied as sis tance to

the pri vate sec tor (es pe cially SMEs) and pos si ble help in in dus trial re -struc tur ing. Raising man a ge rial ca pac ity in in dus try and ser vices, im -prov ing the in no va tive ca pac ity of busi nesses, de vel op ingen tre pre neur ship, en cour ag ing adapt abil ity of busi nesses and their em -ploy ees to raise over all com pet i tive ness, are seen as the key tar gets forPHARE sup port within the In dus try SOP.

Coordination and MonitoringUn der the new sit u a tion and cen trali sa tion of JROP it is con ceiv able

that cen tral bod ies will be come more im por tant then those in the re -gions re gard ing PHARE. So far, the power of re gional struc tures whichwere sup posed to su per vise the PHARE 2000+im ple men ta tion - Re -gional Coun cils and Com mit tees of Re gional De vel op ment (with pub lic ac cess un der cer tain con di tions to the meet ings of the last men tioned).It is hard to say how these is sues will be sorted out now, but it is clearthat more weight will be given to the po si tion of the Min is try of Lo calDe vel op ment and Min is try of In dus try.

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ConclusionYet an other up date of this re port shows that sig nif i cant gaps re main

re gard ing not only trans par ent in volve ment of the pub lic into the de ci -sion-making about the prep a ra tion and use of EU funds, but also thelack of in for ma tion (even such a sim ple thing like a com pre hen sive da ta -base of the PHARE pro jects is not avail able to the pub lic, ac cord ing toour knowl edge). Also, the level of dis or der in the pre pa ra tory pro cesshas not de creased in the four years since the prep a ra tion of the NDPstarted, as can be doc u mented by the case of the re cently sug gestedmerger of the SOP En vi ron ment, SOP Trans port, SOP Tour ism and all the ROPs (ex cept for the one cov er ing the City of Prague) un der onecom mon JROP. How ever, it seems like the con fu sion has been cre atednot only on the na tional au thor i ties’ side, but also co mes from the sideof the Eu ro pean Com mis sion.

NGOs wel come the fact that SEAs are sup posed to be car ried forthe JROP and SOPs. How ever, know ing the sit u a tion of omit ting pub lic and en vi ron men tal con cerns in the pro cess of prep a ra tion of last NDP,NGO scep ti cism re mains about the like li hood of do ing the SEA inproper qual ity in a given time frame.

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Es to nia

Na tional De vel op ment PlanThe ba sic doc u ment for the use of pre-structural funds, the Na tional

De vel op ment Plan, was final ised by Es to nia in Sep tem ber 1999. Indraft ing the first NDP, there was vir tu ally no pub lic par tic i pa tion orNGO in volve ment in the pro cess. Friends of the Earth-Estonia findsthat the en vi ron men tal im pact state ment of the NDP pre pared by EIACon sul tancy ARCADIS/Euroconsult was of very poor qual ity, as itlargely con sists of all sorts of back ground sta tis tics and lacks a goodanal y sis of en vi ron men tal im pacts.

The pro cess of up dat ing the NDP be gan in early 2001, and now, thein volve ment of so cial part ners looks better. The level of NGO in volve -ment dif fers in var i ous sec tors, with en vi ron men tal NGOs be ing themost ac tive in the pro cess, as usual. It is planned that the new Na tionalDe vel op ment Plan for 2003-2006 will be final ised by De cem ber, 2002.Al though the re spon si ble au thor ity (the Min is try of Fi nance) tried tocon vince ev ery body that there was no need to carry out a Stra te gic En vi -ron men tal As sess ment of the NDP, ac cord ing to Es to nian leg is la tionthe SEA will fi nally be done as re sult of con sis tent pres sure by NGOs.The SEA pro cess is planned to be done par al lel to the draft ing of theNa tional De vel op ment Plan and the dead line for the fi nal SEA re port isDe cem ber, 2002.

ISPA Strat e giesThe first ver sions of the en vi ron ment and trans port strat e gies for

the uti li sa tion of ISPA pre-accession money were pre pared in 1999. Inthe fall of 2001, up dat ing of the na tional ISPA strat e gies was ini ti atedand a few en vi ron men tal NGOs got in volved at a rather late stage. Draft ver sions were avail able on the website of the Min is try of Fi nance andNGOs wish ing to com ment on the strat e gies had ap prox i mately threeweeks to do so (in clud ing the long Christ mas and New Year hol i days).Few sug ges tions made by NGOs were in cluded in the text of the strat e -

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gies, show ing that one still can not talk of open and mean ing ful par tic i -pa tion in the pro cess. The good news is that the lat est draft of the ISPAtrans port strat egy ex ists in Es to nian lan guage, trans lated from Eng lish.Still, both strat e gies from the trans port and en vi ron ment min is tries areini tially drafted in Eng lish and this fact in it self lim its the scale of pos si -ble par tic i pa tion in the draft ing and com ment ing pro cess. In the fu ture,both strat e gies should be drafted and com piled in Es to nian and only af -ter be ing final ised trans lated into Eng lish.

While there are a few NGO rep re sen ta tives on the Es to nianSAPARD mon i tor ing com mit tee, NGOs are not pres ent on the En vi -ron men tal or Trans port ISPA Monitoring Committees. In May 2001,Friends of the Earth-Estonia ap plied for a seat on the ISPA en vi ron -ment mon i tor ing com mit tee. Al though the Min is tries of Fi nance andEn vi ron ment sup ported the in clu sion of NGOs, the lo cal Del e ga tion of the Eu ro pean Com mis sion did not find it proper and sug gested otherforms of in for ma tion ex change with the in ter ested NGO com mu nity. A let ter ask ing for the po si tion of the Eu ro pean Com mis sion on the in -volve ment of NGOs on na tional ISPA mon i tor ing com mit tees was sent to three Com mis sioners by the Friends of the Earth-Estonia. In re -sponse, on be half of the Com mis sioners, Mr. Michel Barnier showed, in con trast to the lo cal Del e ga tion, will ing ness to ac cept NGO rep re sen ta -tives as ob serv ers on ISPA mon i tor ing com mit tees.

Prep a ra tions for Use of Struc tural FundsThe EU has an nounced its readi ness to ac cept new mem ber states in

2004, and prep a ra tions for fu ture use of EU Struc tural Funds and Co he -sion Funds have started in Es to nia. So far, the prep a ra tions are hap pen -ing be hind closed doors. NGOs want to en sure that the rules for theStruc tural Funds’ pro cesses will clearly lay out ways for mean ing ful par -tic i pa tion and full trans par ency. The key ques tion is how the al ready ex -ist ing EU guide lines will be trans lated into re al ity in Es to nia.

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Trans port Sec tor Pro jectsWhile the state of Es to nia’s en vi ron ment will def i nitely ben e fit from

en vi ron men tal pro jects that will be fi nanced by the ISPA pre-accessionfund, there are de vel op ments in other sec tors such as trans por ta tion, en -ergy and ag ri cul ture that may coun ter this pos i tive trend.

Un til now, only the Via Baltica road cor ri dor (Ikla-Tallinn-Narva)con struc tion and re ha bil i ta tion pro ject has been ap proved by the Eu ro -pean Com mis sion for trans port ISPA co-financing in Es to nia. In ad di -tion, a few tech ni cal as sis tance pro jects have been launched. Sinceen vi ron men tal pro jects will get most of Es to nia’s ISPA money in thefirst years, the im pact of trans port in fra struc ture pro jects on the en vi -ron ment will be felt in 2004-2006. In the up dated (Feb ru ary 2002) ver -sion of the na tional ISPA trans port strat egy, the first four pro jects onthe pri or ity list are for in vest ments in road trans port.

A new na tional ISPA strat egy for the trans port sec tor in cludes aEUR 800 000 tech ni cal as sis tance pro ject for prep a ra tion of a bridgepro ject, cre at ing a con nec tion be tween Es to nia’s main land and its larg -est is land, Saaremaa. Con struc tion of the bridge, with a length of somesix to ten kilo metres, would cost at least EUR 100 mil lion. Es to nian en -vi ron men tal ists fear that the con struc tion of the bridge would have se -vere en vi ron men tal and so cial con se quences.

The good news is that there are sev eral pro jects for mod erni sa tion of rail ways in Es to nia listed in the new ISPA trans port sec tor strat egy. Thebad news is that as the na tional rail way com pany was pri va tised in Au -gust 2001, the fu ture of ISPA co-financing for up grades of the Es to nianrail sec tor re mains un clear. It is pos si ble that the ISPA co-financing level for rail sec tor pro jects would re main the same as the re main ing own er -ship of the Es to nian state in the rail way com pany (34 per cent). In such acase the new pri vate owner, Bal tic Rail way Ser vices, would have to come up with its own, rather large fi nan cial in put if pro ject pro pos als are to besub mit ted for ISPA co-financing.

There is a new pro posal for a rail pro ject with a po ten tially pos i tiveen vi ron men tal im pact: al though still quite low on the pri or ity list, thereis a plan to re quest ISPA fi nanc ing for the de con tam i na tion and re ha bil i -ta tion of rail way sur round ings in Es to nia. There are plans for in vest -

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ments in pas sen ger rail pro jects mostly in the Tallinn re gion, but as thena tional pas sen ger rail com pany was pri va tised to the Brit ish com panyGB Rail ways in late 2000, the pos si bil ity of ISPA sup port of these pro -jects is un clear.

An idea to fi nance the Es to nian part of the pro posedTallinn-Warsaw-Berlin high speed rail con nec tion (at the mo ment in ter -na tional rail con nec tions to/from Es to nia are vir tu ally non-existent) isalso on the list of pos si ble up com ing pro jects. If the fast speed rail con -nec tion were to go through Es to nia’s sec ond larg est city, Tartu, it would fi nally pro vide a good al ter na tive to the par al lel road con nec tion whichis heavily pro moted and used to day.

En vi ron ment Sec tor Pro jectsDue to the better in sti tu tional ca pac ity of the Es to nian Min is try of

En vi ron ment, most of the pro jects pre pared for ISPA fi nanc ing thus far are en vi ron men tal ones.

On one hand, the en vi ron men tal im pact of sew age sys tem ren o va -tion pro jects that will be fi nanced by ISPA in cit ies of Tallinn, Tartu,Narva, Kohtla-Järve, and Viljandi are in deed pos i tive. How ever, con -ven tional treat ment tech niques and fa cil i ties have al ready been cho sen,and even if they are built largely with grant as sis tance, tax pay ers and us -ers will cover fu ture main te nance costs. In the long run, it of ten turnsout that con ven tional so lu tions are rather ex pen sive when com pared toal ter na tive ones, such as the use of ar ti fi cial wetlands for wastewatertreat ment. The Gov ern ment of Es to nia should be come much morepro-active in search ing for and pro pos ing al ter na tive so lu tions forwastewater treat ment pro jects to be fi nanced by ISPA. If the Eu ro peanCom mis sion would push in that di rec tion, it would be help ful as well.Knowl edge of eco log i cal en gi neer ing ex ists in Es to nia, and there haveal ready been sev eral al ter na tive treat ment sys tems in place for sev eralyears.

It is pos i tive that in the up dated (Feb ru ary 2002) ISPA strat egy pa -per for the en vi ron ment sec tor, the new ap proach of catch ment ar easfor wa ter man age ment pro jects is used. The three pro posed pro jects ofcatch ment area river wa ter man age ment (from the Vasalemma-Keila,

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Pärnu and Emajogi rivers) pres ent a pro gres sive, in te grated ap proach. Italso pro vides an ex am ple of the suc cess ful com bi na tion of smaller pro -jects which would be oth er wise un able to meet the min i mum pro jectsize re quire ment of EUR five mil lion.

The con struc tion of new waste han dling fa cil i ties and land fills willgen er ally have a pos i tive en vi ron men tal im pact. There are three pro pos -als for con struc tion of re gional land fills com bined with the clo sure ofdoz ens of small, out dated land fills. The new Tallinn-Jõelähtme land fill(in com bi na tion with the clo sure of the cur rent land fill in Pääsküla),Pärnu re gional land fill and South east Es to nia re gional land fill are pro -posed for ISPA co-financing. In ad di tion, two haz ard ous waste man age -ment pro jects are in the pipe line as part of the na tional Haz ard ousWaste Man age ment Sys tem. Newly con structed land fills will de creasethe dan ger of leak age to ground wa ter, which is cur rently a ma jor prob -lem with Es to nian land fills. How ever, the re place ment of hun dreds ofsmaller land fills with half a dozen new big land fills will raise waste trans -port costs and the ser vice will be come more ex pen sive for peo ple. Thehigher waste han dling prices may cause some peo ple to start dump ingtheir waste in for ests and fields around set tle ments. Also, too much em -pha sis is placed on end-of-pipe so lu tions such as land fills in stead of onmini mis ing waste cre ation. For tu nately, no waste in cin er a tors areplanned so far.

Ag ri cul ture Sec tor Pro jectsThe to tal sup port of SAPARD fund ing avail able to Es to nia in

2000-2006 is 1,2 bil lion Es to nian kroons (EUR 80 mil lion). Es to nia wasthe sec ond EU ac ces sion coun try to get an ac cred ited SAPARD agency(Es to nian Ag ri cul tural Reg is ters and In for ma tion Board), on June 15,2001. The first grants were dis trib uted in Sep tem ber 2001. Due to theshort pe riod for pre par ing the com pli cated grant pro pos als forSAPARD sup port, only 248 ap pli ca tions were re ceived by the Es to nianSAPARD agency in 2001, of which 130 got a pos i tive re sponse. For2002, the ap pli ca tion forms were mod i fied and the fi nal ap pli ca tiondead line was set for Sep tem ber 2002.

Es to nian ag ri cul ture has be come much more en vi ron men tallyfriendly as the use of fer ti lis ers and pes ti cides has dropped twice dur ing

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the last de cade. There is, how ever, a threat that with SAPARD fi nanc ing and other fi nan cial sup port schemes, small farms will start to merge andlarge-scale ag ri cul tural en ter prises will in ten sify their pro duc tion, us ingmore fer ti lis ers and pes ti cides. It is un for tu nate that en vi ron men tal pro -jects are not listed among pri or ity ac tiv i ties el i gi ble for SAPARD sup -port in Es to nia. It is cru cial that SAPARD sup port should be comeavail able for smaller scale pro jects and small farms. Al ter na tive ac tiv i ties (such as eco log i cal ag ri cul ture) should have been pro moted and sup -ported by SAPARD pre-accession mech a nisms from the very be gin -ning.

Tallinn Land fill Case StudyThe Tallinn landfil is an en vi ron men tal pro ject worth EUR 9,6 mil -

lion, pre sented for ISPA fi nanc ing. Al though NGOs gen er ally wel comethe pro ject, there have been prob lems re lated to it, es pe cially re gard ingtrans par ency and con sul ta tions. At the mo ment, there are more than500 small land fills in Es to nia. All of them are rather old and do not meetcur rent en vi ron men tal and health stan dards. Thus, there is a plan tostart clos ing of all these land fills and con struct 7-12 new large re gionalland fills for mu nic i pal waste that would meet EU re quire ments. Thefirst such new land fill was opened in 2000. For the cap i tal city Tallinnand its hin ter land (500 000 inhabitants) the same pro cess was cho sen.The cur rent land fill in Pääsküla (in the South west ern part of Tallinn)was opened in the early 1970s and is in very bad con di tion. The plannedfull clo sure of Pääsküla land fill will take at least five years and af ter that it is planned to be safely cov ered by a rec re ational area with a sports cen tre for horse rid ing, moun tain bik ing and ski ing, in the 30-hectare area cur -rently cov ered by waste moun tains.

To re place the cur rent land fill a new lo ca tion in Jõelähtme, in a for -mer phosphorite min ing area some 20 kilo metres East of Tallinn, wascho sen. The first plans to cre ate a new land fill in Jõelähtme date back tothe 1970s, how ever, the plans did not ma teri al ise at that time. Pub lic dis -cus sions and prep a ra tions started again in 1989. In 1996, the Tallinn city gov ern ment of fi cially chose Jõelähtme as the lo ca tion for the new mu -nic i pal land fill for the city and the hin ter land. The mu nic i pal waste com -pany Tallinna Prügila AS launched an in ter na tional ten der in Jan u ary

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1999. Af ter tough ne go ti a tions that lasted for more than a year, an agree -ment was signed in May 2000 with the Ger man com pany SKP Re cy cling AG & Co (a sub sid iary of Cleanaway Ltd. from the UK). The com panywill build and op er ate the new land fill on a 67-hectare area and with a to -tal ca pac ity of 4,5 mil lion tons.

Al though this lo ca tion is prob a bly the best for a new Tallinn re gional land fill for mu nic i pal waste, there have been sev eral prob lems con -nected with the pro cess of se lec tion and prep a ra tion of the pro ject. Firstof all, there is quite a lot of lo cal re sis tance against the pro ject. It is un -der stand able that the own ers of land and prop erty close to the plannedland fill do not feel happy about the plans. Ac tions such as a pe ti tionagainst the pro ject and pro test ar ti cles in the me dia have been car riedout. It seems that the task of in form ing the pub lic about the pro ject andits im pacts was not suf fi cient. A con tin u ous flow of in for ma tion andproper pub lic meet ings for the 5 000 in hab it ants of the Jõelähtme par ish would have made the dif fer ence as both the need for a new re gionalland fill and its lo ca tion are gen er ally wel comed by NGOs. Also, the pro -cess of ne go ti a tions with the land fill op er a tor com pany SKP Re cy clingwere se cre tive and both the pub lic and the me dia kept ex press ing theircon cerns that the city of Tallinn (the land does not be long to lo cal mu -nic i pal ity, it be longs to the state and the city of Tallinn holds the rightsfor build ing on it) was be hav ing too weakly in the ne go ti a tions. Tallinnprom ised a cer tain level of profit for SKP, al though at a lower level thanSKP had orig i nally strongly de manded. Still, a profit for SKP is guar an -teed even if the land fill is not ac tu ally pro duc ing a profit.

For tu nately, no vol ume of waste was guar an teed to SKP (al though it wanted to have the rights to han dle all the mu nic i pal waste of Tallinn).As the Jõelähtme land fill is quite far from Tallinn (some 20 km east from the city) there is a dan ger that peo ple will in creas ingly just carry theirwaste to for ests closer to the city. As the charge for dis posal of mu nic i -pal waste will be high at the new land fill (EUR 32/tonne, a three-fold in -crease from the price in cur rent Pääsküla land fill) the mar ket should beopen for com pe ti tion. A re cy cling com pany, RagnSells, has al ready an -nounced an idea to build an other land fill closer to Tallinn where thecharge would be cheaper.

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The Es to nian Min is try of En vi ron ment is seek ing ISPA fund ing fortwo phases of the pro ject: con struc tion of the new Jõelähtme land fill(ISPA would be fi nanc ing an ac cess road and wa ter scheme there) andfor clo sure of the ex ist ing Pääsküla land fill. A to tal EUR 9,6 mil lionISPA grant is re quested for 2000 and 2001, and co-financing by theGov ern ment of Es to nia will be EUR 4,2 mil lion. Con struc tion of thenew re gional land fill for Tallinn and its hin ter land forms part of the na -tional pol icy ac cord ing to which the small, out dated ex ist ing land fillswill be re placed by new re gional ones ful fill ing de mands of EU Di rec -tive 1999/31/EC on land fill of waste.

Annual pro ject cost break down (mil lion EUR)

2000 2001 2002 Total

Tallinn land fill(phase I: open ing of Jõelähtme)

3,55 3,55 0 7,1

Tallinn land fill(phase II: clo sure of Pääsküla)

0 3,35 3,35 6,7

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Friends of the Earth - Estonia

Hungary

The NDP Pro cessThe Pre lim i nary Na tional De vel op ment Plan was sup posed to

co-ordinate pre-accession funds un til the Na tional De vel op ment Planwas pre pared. In 2001, the min is tries jointly com piled the Pre lim i naryPlan, with out in volv ing civil so ci ety in the pro cess. The doc u mentseems to have been writ ten in haste, mostly with a copy-paste ex er cise,us ing pre-accession strat e gies and the so-called “Széchenyi Plan” for in -fra struc ture de vel op ment. When asked about why the Plan was onlypre pared in Eng lish, pro mot ers of the Plan said that it had been pre -pared for the EU pri mar ily and was not for our use. The Min is try forEn vi ron ment dis ap proved of the fact that the Pre lim i nary Na tional De -vel op ment Plan was not sub ject to an en vi ron men tal anal y sis.

The NDP pro cess started in late 2000. Since the time when the firstsched ule for the elab o ra tion was pre sented, it has been changed slightly.The new sched ule looks as fol lows:

• up date of the sit u a tion sur vey: Jan u ary – April 2002• iden ti fi ca tion of stra te gic ob jec tives and pri or i ties: by April 2002• short sum mary of op er a tive programmes: by April – May 2002• full draft of NDP: by Oc to ber 2002• con sul ta tion pe riod with pro fes sional, so cial part ners and civil so -

ci ety: April – Oc to ber 2002• gov ern ment ap proval of the fi nal NDP: De cem ber 2002.The Na tional De vel op ment Plan will in clude five op er a tive

programmes, one of which is go ing to be the Op er a tional Programmefor Re gional De vel op ment. The EU is also press ing for cen tral man age -ment of the Pro gram. This makes rep re sen ta tion of real re gional in ter -ests im pos si ble. There fore, NGOs urge that an Op er a tional Programme for Re gional De vel op ment for each re gion be pre pared or at least therebe sub-programmes for each re gion and that the Pro gram be man agedin a de cen tral ised man ner in the re gions.

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The de vel op ment of the Op er a tional Programme for Re gional De -vel op ments has been rel a tively open. Upon pres sure from civil so ci ety,the gov ern ment re leased the draft of the “sit u a tion sur vey” of theProgrammes and asked NGOs to com ment. A num ber of large en vi -ron men tal NGOs (Na tional So ci ety of Con ser va tion ists (Friends of theEarth – Hun gary), Clean Air Ac tion Group, WWF among oth ers) andre gional NGOs sub mit ted their com ments to the Programmes. Sur pris -ingly, sev eral civil so ci ety rec om men da tions were in cluded in the re -gional & en vi ron men tal parts of the programme. Un for tu nately, thegov ern ment sub se quently re moved some of the com ments that theMin is try for En vi ron ment in cluded in the Programme. This gov ern -ment de ci sion af fected com ments that con cerned in te gra tion of en vi -ron men tal as pects into other sec tors. Two pro pos als of NGOs (theones on re new able en ergy and on com mu nity de vel op ment) also ap pear among the mea sures for im ple men ta tion. Ap par ently, there is a will bythe pro mot ers of the NDP to make im prove ments along NGO com -ments, but there are still false con cepts that they can not aban don: de vel -op ment of road traf fic, the use of Gross Do mes tic Prod uct (GDP) asthe main in di ca tor, at trac tion of for eign di rect in vest ment.

It is very wel come that, Vati Kht., the or gani sa tion set up by theMin is try of Ag ri cul ture and Ru ral De vel op ment to elab o rate and ad min -is ter re gional de vel op ment programmes, is pre par ing a Stra te gic En vi -ron men tal As sess ment for the Re gional Op er a tive Pro gram along themeth od ol ogy pro vided by the Re gional En vi ron men tal Centre. For theten der, some en vi ron men tal NGOs (re search cen tres) were also in vited. To fur ther pro mote pub lic par tic i pa tion in the pro cess, NGOs un derthe lead er ship of the Na tional So ci ety of Con ser va tion ists (Friends ofthe Earth Hun gary) are now or gan is ing re gional fo rums about theNDP.

Mon i toringWhile the gen eral in sti tu tional set-up was out lined in gov ern ment

de crees in 2000, mon i tor ing has just been reg u lated for all thepre-accession funds by a gov ern ment de cree in Sep tem ber 2001. Thisde cree (166/2001.(IX.14.)) de fines Monitoring Committee as a body of

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pro fes sion als con sist ing of rep re sen ta tives of au thor i ties draw ing on the cen tral bud get and rep re sen ta tives of “civil or gani sa tions.”

Al though men tion ing civil or gani sa tions, it is not clear whether thismeans the pri vate sec tor or NGO so ci ety as well. In lat ter para graphs,the de cree lists mem bers of mon i tor ing com mit tees of dif fer ent lev els.It is the Programme Mon i toring Com mit tee only among the mem bersof which “rep re sen ta tives ap pointed by so cial and eco nomic share hold -ers” are men tioned.

In Jan u ary 2002, the Na tional So ci ety of Con ser va tion ists (Friendsof the Earth Hun gary) and the Clean Air Ac tion Group ad dressed a let -ter to the min is ters of ag ri cul ture and ru ral de vel op ment, of eco nom ics,of trans port and wa ter man age ment and the min is ter re spon si ble forPHARE. In the let ter, they asked the min is ters to give an op por tu nity toen vi ron men tal NGOs to del e gate rep re sen ta tives to the ProgrammeMon i toring Com mit tees for ISPA and PHARE, the Na tional Mon i -toring Com mit tees and the sec toral mon i tor ing com mit tees.

Cur rent prac tice shows that the Na tional Mon i toring Com mit teeand the Mon i toring Com mit tee un der the Min is try of Eco nom ics doesnot al low/ac cept en vi ron men tal civil so ci ety par tic i pants, while in theSec toral Mon i toring Com mit tee at the Min is try for En vi ron ment, tworep re sen ta tives of en vi ron men tal NGOs were ac cepted.

ISPAThe Cen tral ISPA Mon i toring Com mit tee held its meet ing in

mid-December 2001. So far, en vi ron men tal NGOs have no in for ma -tion about any in volve ment of civil so ci ety in the Com mit tee, al thoughin for ma tion from un of fi cial sources said the Eu ro pean Com mu nitieswould pro mote in volve ment of en vi ron men tal NGOs in the com mit -tee. This would be in line with the de mands of civil so ci ety, as well.

The Fi nan cial Mem o ran da signed for dif fer ent pro jects have beenpub lished in the form of gov ern ment de crees. These doc u ments in volve reg u la tion about mon i tor ing and nec es sary pub lic ity of the pro jects.Non-governmental or gani sa tions are men tioned only un der the header“In for ma tion and Pub lic ity” as part of the gen eral pub lic who has to be

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no ti fied about ISPA pos si bil i ties, the pro ject and the Eu ro pean Com -mu nity’s in volve ment in it.

For pro ject man age ment, ISPA Of fices have been set up re cently atsev eral mu nic i pal i ties to ad min is ter the im ple men ta tion of ISPA pro -jects. It is some what un for tu nate that these of fices do not have a sim i larback ground: some were built as a branch or ex pan sion of an ex ist ing in -sti tu tion, oth ers were es tab lished as a brand new group within the mu -nic i pal ity some op er ate with sev eral em ploy ees, while at other places allthe bur den of an ISPA pro ject is put on the shoul ders of one per son.

Ac cord ing to our ex pe ri ence, it largely de pends on the good will ofthe per son or in sti tu tion ap proached whether they will re lease pro -ject-related doc u ments. In sev eral in stances, they with held doc u ments,cit ing busi ness con fi den ti al ity.

Af ter long-time non-responsiveness of the Programme Man ager ofen vi ron men tal ISPA, Bankwatch turned to the Min is ter re spon si ble forPHARE, com plain ing about the non-availability of in for ma tion fromthe Programme Man ager and asked the Min is ter for pro ject-related doc -u ments. The Min is ter’s Of fice was quick in re spond ing and in formed us that they do not have the EIAs of the pro jects but they can send us theFi nan cial Mem o ran da which also con tain pro ject de scrip tion. They alsoof fered their help in ob tain ing the EIAs.

SAPARDThe Fi nan cial Mem o ran dum has been signed for the year 2000. For

the up com ing years, a frame work mem o ran dum has been signed. Thisstip u lates that, un less the Fi nan cial Mem o ran dum for a bud get ary year is signed by the end of the fol low ing year, the Com mis sion can cels theavail abil ity of that bud get. Funds have not been dis bursed yet and wor -ries that they might get lost have been dis pelled re cently, when the Eu -ro pean Com mis sion an nounced that it gives an ex tended dead line forthe use of SAPARD funds: the an nual bud get for 2000 is avail able till2003.

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The prog ress made in the prep a ra tion of the SAPARD Agency forac cred i ta tion was ac knowl edged by the del e ga tion of the Com mis sion.The of fi cial date of the open ing of re gional SAPARD of fices was Jan u -ary 2002. These seven of fices are re spon si ble for re ceiv ing and eval u at -ing ap pli ca tions for the fund. Calls for pro pos als will, how ever, bepub lished by the Min is try of Ag ri cul ture and Ru ral De vel op ment.

PHAREThe in sti tu tional set-up for pre-accession funds will have to un dergo

sig nif i cant changes not only in Hun gary, but also in other ben e fi ciarycoun tries. This is be cause the EU an nounced at the an nual con fer enceof min is ters re spon si ble for these funds in ac ces sion coun tries that,from 2003 on, PHARE and ISPA will also have to be ad min is tered in ade cen tral ised man ner, just like SAPARD. Rel e vant agen cies will have tobe es tab lished by the end of 2002, and funds to be re ceived in 2002 and2003 will al ready have to be ad min is tered this way. This ini tia tive is verywel come, al though there is a threat that, chang ing the newly-set-up in -sti tu tional sys tem while funds are al ready be ing al lo cated will cre ate con -fu sion re gard ing re spon si bil i ties and de lay the pro cess of ad min is tra tion and dis burse ment of funds while con sum ing con sid er able fi nan cial re -sources .

The plan for “in vest ment in eco nomic and so cial co he sion” com po -nent of PHARE 2002/03 in Hun gary, also called the Or pheus Plan, isun der prep a ra tion and Vati Kht. is will ing to con sult civil so ci ety on thedraft. The bud get at tached to the Plan for 2002/03 amounts to ap prox i -mately EUR 79 mil lion (ac cord ing to in for ma tion dated De cem ber2001). We have no in for ma tion yet about PHARE funds de voted to in -sti tu tion build ing and the “in vest ment in reg u la tory in fra struc ture.” Part of this bud get will be de voted to re gional de vel op ment, for which threema jor pri or i ties have been de fined: in te grated de vel op ment of set tle -ments, road de vel op ment and en vi ron men tal mea sures. The EU ispress ing for a struc ture where each re gion can choose only one of thesepri or i ties and im ple ment pro jects in that field. Civil so ci ety largely dis ap -proves of this ap proach, and some re gions are try ing to push for thepos si bil ity of se lect ing at least two pri or ity fields.

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Over view of Selected Pro jects and Con ceptsISPA - En vi ron ment

In this study, we high light pos i tive and neg a tive ex pe ri ences andpro vide anal y sis of some pro jects from an en vi ron men tal point of view,with out the in ten tion of an over arch ing anal y sis of all sup ported pro -grams. In June 2001, ne go ti a tions be tween Hun gary and the EU cameto the stage when the chap ter on the en vi ron ment was closed. Hun garyob tained tran si tional ar range ments on the fol low ing fields:

• re cov ery and re cy cling of pack ag ing waste un til 2005;• air-pollution from large com bus tion plants un til 2005;• in cin er a tion of haz ard ous waste un til 2005; and• treat ment of ur ban waste wa ter un til 2015.It is worth ask ing why the air-pollution prob lem can not be sorted

out with the help of ISPA. While one of the four pri or i ties of en vi ron -men tal ISPA is im prove ment of air qual ity, the Hun gar ian ISPA Strat -egy on the En vi ron ment seems to ig nore this op por tu nity. At a meet ingwith NGOs in De cem ber 2001, the Programme Man ager ar gued thatthis is mostly due to the Com mis sion which, strangely, would find it dif -fi cult to man age air-pollution pre ven tion pro jects in a trans par ent man -ner.

The anal y sis of pro jects was pre pared based on the pro ject de scrip -tions at tached to the Fi nan cial Mem o ran da3. It is re mark able that allwaste man age ment pro jects4 in clude se lec tive col lec tion and waste re -duc tion mea sures (e.g. com post ing). How ever, the con cept be hind re -gional waste de pos its is ba si cally un sus tain able. If lo cal land fills lackad e quate em bed ding and safety es tab lish ments, it will ver ify what the Fi -nan cial Mem o ran dum of the waste man age ment pro ject in the Szolnokre gion says: hav ing a land fill in each set tle ment is un sus tain able. How -ever, this prob lem should not be rem e died by trans port ing waste to a25-km-further-away sit u ated land fill, but by the clo sure and re ha bil i ta -tion of ex ist ing im proper land fills and the set ting up of new,up-to-standard land fills in those set tle ments. This way, the bur den onthe en vi ron ment would not be con cen trated in a sin gle spot, as the en vi -ron ment can better han dle the bur den of smaller quan ti ties of waste.

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Also, dis ad van tages in di cated in the case of the Hajdú-Bihar re gionalwaste man age ment pro ject – such as in creased truck traf fic in in hab itedar eas, dam age to build ings and roads, in creased noise level and air pol lu -tion - could be avoided. If waste is trans ported a long way, this woulden hance truck traf fic which would not only be more cost-intensive thanthe lo cal de posit of waste but would also con trib ute to cli mate change in the long run.

There is a threat that an in crease of ser vice prices in the case of some waste man age ment pro jects (which is planned to be much above thecur rent av er age na tional price level in one of the poor est re gions of thecoun try) would re sult in an in crease in the il le gal de pos it ing of waste. Asfor re gional wastewater treat ment pro jects, it would be just as un sus tain -able and ex pen sive to trans port wastewater along sev eral kilo metres to a cen tral treat ment plant. There fore, it is not rec om mended that ISPA fi -nance such pro jects. If “black waste wa ter” is com posted, the quan tityof wastewater can be re duced. In the case of mu nic i pal sew age treat -ment pro jects and in cases where only a few set tle ments are in volved,this prob lem does not oc cur.5

Pro ject ben e fits listed in the an nexes of the Fi nan cial Mem o ran dawere found to be ir rel e vant to the pro ject it self in some cases. To men -tion an ex am ple: in the course of a solid waste man age ment pro ject,con di tions of or ganic farm ing and the de vel op ment of tour ism are sup -posed to im prove. It is also un clear why con struc tion of a sewer sys temin the out skirts of a city would at tract more tour ists to the city. It is alsonon sense what the de scrip tion of the Fi nan cial Mem o ran dum of theSajó-Bódva Val ley waste man age ment pro ject de clares: “Prac ti cally noex ter nal costs can be at trib uted to the pro ject.” The dec la ra tion that theMid Dan ube-Tisza Plain Re gion waste man age ment pro ject “is notlikely to af fect an en vi ron men tally sen si tive area” is vague and pro videsno guar an tee that such ar eas will re ally not be af fected.

The de vel op ment of the Bu da pest wastewater treat ment sys tem6 isof cru cial im por tance as cur rently only 34 per cent of the waste wa ter ofthe cap i tal is treated. The planned pro ject – for the prep a ra tion of which tech ni cal as sis tance has been granted from ISPA– would en sure treat -ment of about 58 per cent of the waste wa ter of Bu da pest. NGOs con -sider it worth while to fol low up with this prom is ing ini tia tive in or der to

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make sure im ple men ta tion would be en vi ron men tally sound in ev ery re -spect.

Trans port Pro jects7

As in di cated in our pre vi ous re port, the ISPA Trans port Strat egy for Hun gary in cludes many more pro jects than those al ready ap proved. Inthis re gard, the Programme Man ager con firmed at a meet ing that the ap -proved pro jects (three rail pro jects, a road re ha bil i ta tion pro ject andtech ni cal as sis tance) cover the as sis tance avail able for trans port sec torde vel op ment un der ISPA. There fore, air port and riverport de vel op -ment pro jects, as well as ex press way con struc tion and es tab lish ment ofa multimodal cargo trans fer ter mi nal would be ef fected af ter ac ces siononly, by draw ing on Struc tural Funds.

It is a gen eral prob lem that de vel op ment plans do not take neg a tiveex ter nali ties re sult ing from the en vi ron men tal im pacts of en hanced traf -fic into ac count. The pro ject de scrip tion at tached to the Fi nan cial Mem -o ran dum of the Hun gar ian Road Re ha bil i ta tion Pro ject im plic itlyad mits that, by adopt ing Com mu nity stan dards for road ve hi cles woulden hance traf fic in the coun try. Taking the adop tion of those stan dardsas a ne ces sity, im prove ment in road qual ity seems to be jus ti fied. How -ever, the con cept that en hanced traf fic speed would re sult in loweremis sion lev els (as trucks would spend less time in the coun try) is noten tirely jus ti fied. This is be cause above a cer tain speed level, emis sionsper kilo metre rise again. The doc u ment also states ex plic itly that, “rathercon ser va tive growth sce nar ios in terms of traf fic have been as sumed...They take intoac count the nor mal na tional fore cast but they don’t in tro duce the im pact of the open ing of M3 motor way from Füzesabony to the Ukrai nian bor der, nor the in crease of heavy ve hi cles once the roads will be opened to heavy EU traf fic af ter re ha bil i ta tion.” Thisgives us rea son to ask whether the En vi ron men tal Mas ter Plan to beelab o rated for the pro ject should use more re al is tic data.

Re gard ing the above road re ha bil i ta tion pro ject, the Clean Air Ac -tion Group (a Hun gar ian NGO) also took mea sures by ad dress ing a let -ter to Michel Barnier, Com mis sioner on Re gional Pol icy, ask ing theEu ro pean Com mis sion to con sider with draw ing its ISPA sup port forthe pro ject, the pur pose of which is to raise the axle-load stan dard bear -

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ing ca pac ity of roads to 11,5 tons. Ac cord ing to the let ter, re ha bil i ta tionshould only mean up grad ing of the roads to the ten-ton axle-load bear -ing ca pac ity. Ex tra strength en ing of the roads be yond that is by nomeans a pub lic ser vice, and no pub lic money should be used for thatpur pose. If such an in vest ment is re ally nec es sary, it should be fully paidby the op er a tors of the heavy road ve hi cles con cerned.

As for the rail pro jects, at the time of the sig na ture of the Fi nan cialMem o ran dum, no EIA ex isted for the delta track to be built at Boba,and no in for ma tion about pub lic hear ings re gard ing the delta track inZalaegerszeg was avail able. The Hun gar ian Rail way Com pany re centlypro vided us with a gen eral over view of in vest ment and re ha bil i ta tionplans in clud ing a time sched ule for the year 2002. The plans mostly in -clude up grad ing, mod erni sa tion and mea sures to en hance safety andpas sen ger con ve nience, while there is rel a tively lit tle new con struc tion(bridges, new tracks) in cluded. For de tailed eval u a tion, more in for ma -tion will be needed.

PHAREIn the pre vi ous re port on the “Bil lions for Sustainability?” pro ject,

we men tioned the pro ject called “Uti li sa tion of Na tional Wood Prop -erty.” Upon our re quest, the pro ject pro moter re fused to pro vide anydoc u ments re gard ing the pro ject, say ing it only cov ered tech ni cal as sis -tance, and would there fore be of no in ter est to us. They also re ferred tobusi ness con fi den ti al ity in their re ply. It is an in ter est ing ex am ple of anar bi trary de ci sion by the pro moter of what is and what is not in the in ter -est of civil so ci ety. With clear rules on ac cess to in for ma tion such ar bi -trary de ci sions would not be pos si ble.

The pro moter of a haz ard ous waste de posit pro ject to be fi nancedun der PHARE re ferred us to the Del e ga tion of the Eu ro pean Com mis -sion, claim ing they would not be al lowed to re lease any pro ject-relateddoc u ment with out the Del e ga tion giv ing its con sent. As a re ply toBankwatch’s no ti fi ca tion let ter, the Del e ga tion de nied that there wouldbe such pre con di tion. Bankwatch man aged to ob tain the pre lim i naryEIAs of two solid waste treat ment pro jects im ple mented with PHAREsup port. The Salgótarján land fill pro ject in volves se lec tive waste col lec -tion, while the pro ject at Kõszeghegyalja does not have such a com po -

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nent. It is wel comed that at Kõszeg, a site was se lected whose use as aland fill does not dis tort the land scape: the waste de posit was built in thepit of an aban doned clay-extraction site.

NGOs have just re cently learned that PHARE Cross-BorderCo-operation with Aus tria would fi nance the development of theGyõr-Pér air port. This air field in North west Hun gary is not part of theTINA net work and, with di rect planes to Ingolstadt, the head quar ters of Audi, it would mainly serve the pur poses of the car man u fac tur ing com -pany that has its sub sid iary in Gyõr. The Clean Air Ac tion Group wrotea let ter to the Head of the EU Del e ga tion in Hun gary, pro test ing against the planned PHARE Cross-Border Co-operation grant. In the let ter,CAAG emphasised that avi a tion is the most en vi ron men tally dam ag ingmode of trans port, which is al ready grossly sub si dised by tax pay ers’money. Pro viding pub lic money for the Gyõr-Pér air port is a se ri ous vi -o la tion of the prin ci ples of free mar ket and the pol luter-pays prin ci ple.

Among the pro jects for 2000, there is a pro ject clas si fied as“ecotourism” in clud ing con struc tion of a ho tel in a pro tected area, nextto the en trance of the Baradla cave, in the mid dle of the Aggtelek Na -tional Park. De spite a strong pro test from NGOs, the pro ject has beenap proved for PHARE sup port. With re gard to Hun gary’s EU ac ces sionpro cess and trans port from an en vi ron men tal point of view, the CleanAir Ac tion Group is pre par ing a study, a short pre lim i nary ver sion ofwhich can be found on the website www.levego.hu/eng -lish/euept/euept.htm.

Con clu sionsThere are ef forts to in volve NGOs in the elab o ra tion of the Na -

tional De vel op ment Plan. How ever, there are still many con cep tualprob lems in terms of sustainability. There is still no clear reg u la tionfrom the EU’s side con cern ing civil so ci ety in volve ment on mon i tor ingcom mit tees and it would be wel come if such a reg u la tion were adopted.A clear reg u la tion about which in sti tu tion is obliged or al lowed to re -lease what type of in for ma tion is badly lack ing and poses an ob sta cle totrans par ency.

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There are some prom is ing pro jects fi nanced un der ISPA andPHARE, how ever, con cerns about funded pro jects are over whelm ing,mostly due to a prob lem with the ba sic ap proach to wards prob lems andso lu tion op por tu ni ties.

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Lat via

In tro duc tionIn Lat via, the pro cess of set ting up mech a nisms for the use of EU

pre-accession funds is largely com pleted and most in sti tu tions have be -come op er a tional. How ever, dif fer ences be tween the rate of im ple men -ta tion of the ISPA, PHARE and SAPARD programmes re main huge.

Lat via is be ing men tioned among those EU ac ces sion coun tries thathave achieved the most in im ple men ta tion of ISPA pro jects, but theSAPARD programme just be came op er a tional in De cem ber 2001. Bu -reau cratic pro ce dures for doc u men ta tion and ad just ments to leg is la tiveacts caused many prob lems and slowed down the pro cess.

Co -or di na tion of the Pro cess Dis cus sions about the need for de vel op ment of an ef fec tive mech a -

nism for co -or di na tion of EU pre-accession aid were on go ing for sev -eral years. Al though there was an agree ment reached about the cre ationof a Min is try for Re gional De vel op ment that would be re spon si ble forthe co-ordination of im ple men ta tion of EU pre-accession funds and re -gional de vel op ment, the gov ern ment de cided to drop this idea in July2001. Yet, the gov ern ment rec og nized the need for in sti tu tional im -prove ments and agreed to in cor po rate a co-ordinating in sti tu tion intothe Min is try of Fi nance, es tab lish ing a new in sti tu tion – Board for Re -gional Pol icy and Planning be gin ning in Jan u ary 2002. The Min is ter forSpe cial As sign ment for co-operation with In ter na tional Fi nan cialAgencies is also head of this Board, ful fill ing the func tions of Na tionalISPA co-ordinator. These changes are aimed at en sur ing ef fec tive andsin gle frame work for guid ance of EU struc tural in stru ments and re -gional pol icy co-ordination in Lat via. The above-mentioned Board hasto en sure ap pro pri ate co or di na tion of ISPA, SAPARD and PHARE in -stru ments and avoid over lap ping of EU pre-accession aid, es pe cially ofthe SAPARD and PHARE programmes.

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The role of Re gional De vel op ment agen cies that cor re spond to fiveplan ning re gions on NUTS III level in Lat via now have a clearer role inthe pro cess to play and this could lead to a greater de gree of de cen trali -sa tion.

Na tional De vel op ment Plan The Na tional De vel op ment Plan is of ten re ferred to as a key stone

for the stra te gic plan ning of co-ordinated and ef fec tive use of EUpre-accession funds. How ever, the elab o ra tion of this doc u ment in Lat -via was rather slow and un ac count able for pub lic. Looking back to his -tory, the first ver sion of the NDP was pre pared in 1999, how ever thiswas done in rush and with out any pub lic in volve ment. Thus, in 2000,the doc u ment was re jected by the EC as in ad e quate and as the re sult;Lat vian au thor i ties ad dressed prep a ra tion of NDP more se ri ously. Stillthis pro cess was marked with a lack of pos si bil ity for pub lic in volve -ment. In Feb ru ary 2001, the Gov ern ment adopted the Stra te gic Mem o -ran dum for NDP that was worked out by group of ex perts and was used as a ba sis for NDP op er a tional part. NDP Stra te gic Mem o ran dum laiddown eight hor i zon tal pri or i ties for de vel op ment in Lat via. Spe cialNDP unit (work ing group) in the form of an inter-ministerial work inggroup was set up to work on the NDP doc u ment and also a group of ex -perts con sist ing mostly of en tre pre neurs and ac a dem ics was con sulted.This work ing group also had the re spon si bil ity to dis trib ute in for ma tion to socio-economic part ners.

De spite ask ing sev eral times for as sur ance of pub lic in volve ment inthis pro cess, en vi ron men tal NGOs were told that they would be givenan op por tu nity to com ment on the draft NDP once it was ready. Nodrafts or dis cus sion pa pers were made avail able to the pub lic prior to the fi nal draft. In deed, the draft NDP was fin ished in the first part of No -vem ber 2001, but even in for ma tion about this fact was not ac tively andwidely dis trib uted to socio-economic part ners. Al though a few or gani -sa tions fi nally got the draft NDP and were asked to pro vide com mentson it, the dead line for com ment ing was set very short. NGO Cen tre,which serves as a sup port cen tre and me di a tor for many NGOs, got theNDP doc u ment on Fri day No vem ber 16 while the dead line was next

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Mon day – No vem ber 19. Sup ported by other NGOs, VAK / Friends of the Earth Lat via asked for an ex ten sion of the dead line for com mentsand to make in for ma tion avail able. How ever this re quest was de niedand the ba sic ar gu ment against was be ing un der time pres sure. But thenagain the sit u a tion is rem i nis cent of the NDP that was pre pared in a bigrush 1999 and was re jected by the Com mis sion, call ing it a “shop pinglist that lacks any stra te gic vi sion.” In an of fi cial let ter sent to the Headof DG Regio, VAK/Friends of the Earth Lat via asked to take into ac -count the fact of miss ing pub lic in volve ment in the prep a ra tion of theNDP.

Pro jects in cluded in NDP cre ated lots of con fu sion, not just for en -vi ron men tal NGOs, but also for farm ers or gani sa tions and even forsome ex perts that were di rectly in volved in prep a ra tion of the NDP.More over, such large-scale pro jects e.g. pulp mill pro ject and Daugava – Dnepra chan nel that cre ated lots of dis cus sion and are treated as en vi -ron men tally con tro ver sial were ranked among the top pri or i ties of theNDP. This leaves place for con sid er ation about how and who ac tu allymade de ci sions on the con tent of the NDP.

As the NDP is still not in place and there is no other doc u ment thatse cures hor i zon tal ap proach and co or di na tion of the use of EUpre-accession funds, the co her ence of sup ported pro jects with state in -ter ests in gen eral can not be guar an teed. This is es pe cially im por tant inthe area of trans port sec tor de vel op ment, as it of ten is in con flict within ter ests of the en vi ron ment.

A Stra te gic En vi ron men tal As sess ment for plans, programmes andpolicies is not re quired by cur rent Lat vian leg is la tion, but ac cord ing to alet ter from Na tional ISPA Co or di na tor, an SEA will be con ducted forthe Lat vian NDP. En vi ron men tal NGOs ap plaud this ini tia tive andlook for ward to the SEA pro cess and its re sults. So far, there have beenno ini tia tives to con duct a SEA for na tional ISPA strat e gies, al thoughen vi ron men tal NGOs con sider that as an im por tant tool. Com mis -sioner for En vi ron ment Margo Wallstrom, while vis it ing Lat via, hasalso pointed to the need of con duct ing a SEA for sec tor strat e gies.

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ISPA Na tional level co or di na tion of ISPA gen er ally is the re spon si bil ity of

the Na tional ISPA co or di na tor (Min is ter for Spe cial As sign ment forCo op er a tion with In ter na tional Fi nan cial Agencies). He is also re spon -si ble for ISPA sec tor strat e gies, the prep a ra tion of pro ject pro pos als and pro ject im ple men ta tion and su per vi sion. The pro cess of ISPA pro jectse lec tion is highly cen tral ised and prep a ra tion and im ple men ta tion re -mains on the level of ei ther Min is try of En vi ron ment and Re gional De -vel op ment or Min is try of Trans port re spec tively. This can be partlyex plained by the lack of funds in most lo cal mu nic i pal i ties – ISPA pro -jects can be car ried out only if co-financing from the state bud get isavail able.

Pub lic Par tic i pa tionCre ating a sense of own er ship of ISPA pro jects is im por tant, as

these pro jects will af fect the lives of many cit i zens and de liver an in -crease in qual ity of ser vices and also an in crease in tar iffs are ex pected,but these are just a few as pects. At the end of 2001, the Min is try of En vi -ron ment and Re gional De vel op ment de vel oped an ISPA com mu ni ca -tion strat egy with the ob jec tive of set ting mea sures for es tab lish ing andmain tain ing re la tions be tween pub lic and ISPA en vi ron men tal im ple -ment ing in sti tu tions. The Draft Strat egy was con sulted on with NGOrep re sen ta tives in sev eral meet ings to dis cuss the most ef fec tive waysand op por tu ni ties for pub lic in volve ment as well as the ex ist ing ex pe ri -ence of mu nic i pal i ties in co-operation with NGOs in the im ple men ta -tion of ISPA pro jects. It is pos i tive that these con sul ta tions wereor gan ised in those cit ies where ISPA pro jects are ap proved and soonwill be im ple mented. How ever most of the em pha sis is put on the pro -ject im ple men ta tion stage and not on the de ci sion-making stage. More -over most of the ISPA En vi ron ment money is ei ther ap proved oras signed for spe cific pro jects and there is not much space for pub lic orNGO in ter ac tion.

The Min is try of Trans port, which is re spon si ble for im ple men ta tionof ISPA Trans port pro jects has not come up with sim i lar ini tia tives norhas it dem on strated an in ter est in in volv ing the pub lic.

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The ISPA Mon i toring Com mit tee is re spon si ble for su per vi sion and con trol of the im ple men ta tion of ISPA pro jects in the sec tors of en vi -ron ment and trans port. Signed fi nan cial mem o ran dums be tween Lat viaand the Com mis sion are the main frame of ref er ence. The com po si tionof the Com mit tee is de ter mined by reg u la tion is sued by the Gov ern -ment that came into force in Jan u ary 2001. It con sists of the Na tionalISPA co-ordinator, na tional re spon si ble au thor ity, sec tor re spon si bleau thor ity, pro ject ap pli cants, a rep re sen ta tive of Eu ro pean Com mis sionand rep re sen ta tives of those in ter na tional fi nan cial in sti tu tions that arein volved in pro ject fi nanc ing. Two meet ings of ISPA Mon i toring com -mit tee were held in 2001, but de tailed in for ma tion about the con tent ofdis cus sions was not pub licly avail able. When asked about pub lic ac ces si -bil ity to the Mon i toring Com mit tee, the Na tional ISPA Co-ordinatorstressed “mass me dia and thus the wider pub lic can get in for ma tion from the presscon fer ences.”

There are no NGO rep re sen ta tives in cluded on the Com mit tee, al -though of fi cial rules do not pro hibit NGO par tic i pa tion in the meet ingsof Com mit tee. VAK/Friends of the Earth Lat via in an of fi cial let terasked for per mis sion to par tic i pate in the meet ings of ISPA Mon i toringCom mit tee and got per mis sion to del e gate a rep re sen ta tive who wouldhave ob server sta tus in the meet ings.

Ac cord ing to in for ma tion pro vided by Lat vian au thor i ties, it is ex -pected that a mid term eval u a tion would be car ried out for ISPA pro -jects that would be done by in de pend ent ex perts or com pa nies.How ever, the re spon si bil ity for pro ject eval u a tion in gen eral lies withthe Eu ro pean Com mis sion.

Part of ISPA money is also di rected for gen eral tech ni cal as sis tance– a pro ject that amounts to EUR 700 000 is fore seen for the in tro duc -tion of the EDIS programme in Lat via that would al low greater de cen -trali sa tion and in crease the ef fec tive ness of ISPA man age ment.

ISPA En vi ron ment Some EUR 160 mil lion to tal will be made avail able for Lat via from

the pe riod of 2000-2006 in ISPA En vi ron ment. Most of the money is ei -ther ap proved or al ready as signed to pro jects – just some EUR 30 mil -

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lion are left for the rest of pe riod. In 2000, three pro jects were ap provedand in 2001 six in vest ment pro jects and one pro ject for tech ni cal as sis -tance were ap proved in the sec tor. Be tween them, six were in the sec torof en vi ron ment and three were in waste man age ment. To tal ISPA fi -nanc ing for pro jects ap proved to the be gin ning of 2002 – EUR 105 mil -lion and an other 35 mil lion are al ready as signed for pro jects that are inthe prep a ra tion stage. In 2002, an other four pro jects are ex pected to beap proved by the EC.

The Na tional ISPA strat egy for the En vi ron men tal sec tor sets sev -eral pri or i ties – wa ter qual ity and wastewater man age ment pro jects,man age ment of mu nic i pal and haz ard ous waste and pro jects de signedto bring im prove ments in air qual ity. De spite this pri or ity, none of thepro jects so far have been de vel oped in the air qual ity sec tor. The usualba sis for pro ject choice is im ple men ta tion plan of en vi ron men tal acquisand a need to meet EU re quire ments in the sec tors of wa ter andwastewater as well as waste man age ment. It is ex pected that EU as sis -tance through ISPA En vi ron ment and later through Struc tural fundscould cover up to one third of the to tal ap prox i ma tion costs in en vi ron -men tal sec tor.

Al though many pro jects are ap proved, prep a ra tion of doc u men ta -tion and ten der ing still takes lots of time. Im ple men ta tion of ISPA pro -jects in the en vi ron men tal sec tor can re quire sev eral years and it ises ti mated that the con struc tion phase of pro jects ap proved in years2000 – 2001 will start in 2003 at the ear li est.

The pro cess is some times con sid er ably slowed down even more due to the poor qual ity work of some West ern con sult ing com pa nies. Thus,in Lat via im ple men ta tion of two pro jects in the sec tor of wa ter man age -ment – in Ventspils and Jelgava – were de layed by one year due to thefact that doc u ments were not pre pared in a timely man ner and of a suf fi -cient qual ity (they did n’t re flect the EC re quire ments). This bad ex pe ri -ence re sulted also in the loss of some EUR 200 000 money that camefrom the En vi ron men tal Pro tec tion Fund as fi nanc ing for pro ject prep -a ra tion.

Taking into ac count the size of the coun try, the EUR five mil lionthresh old for ISPA pro jects as a gen eral re quire ment was in ap pro pri ateand Lat via was the first ac ces sion coun try that started prep a ra tion of

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pro jects that were based on group ing us ing the river ba sin prin ci ple.This way “Wa ter man age ment in Gauja – Salaca river ba sin in small mu -nic i pal i ties in East ern Lat via” was pre pared and that en com passes 18mu nic i pal i ties and cov ers roughly 192 500 in hab it ants (ap prox i matelyeight per cent of in hab it ants in Lat via). As a re sult of im ple men ta tion ofthis pro ject, a cru cial de crease in the pol lut ant load to the Bal tic Sea isex pected.

Al though most of the en vi ron men tal ISPA pro jects are in the wa tersec tor, sev eral waste man age ment pro jects are un der prep a ra tion. Oneof them that would be pro posed to ISPA that may cause fur ther dis cus -sions in Lat via, is a haz ard ous waste land fill to gether with a haz ard ouswaste in cin er a tor in Olaine. This pro ject idea in the EIA pro cess causedmany dis cus sions in the pub lic, which does not sup port this idea. SomeNGOs are wor ried whether it could still be pos si ble to en force mea sures of waste re duc tion at the source.

A com mon fea ture for wa ter ser vices pro jects is an in crease in tar iffs to en sure sta ble fi nan cial flow in the pro ject and some times this causessome frus tra tion in the pub lic. State guar an tees or co-financing fromstate is of ten cru cial to im ple ment ISPA pro jects.

ISPA Trans port In the trans port sec tor, roughly EUR 160 mil lion would be avail able

from the ISPA fund for this seven-year pe riod. The Na tional ISPAstrat egy for the trans port sec tor for the pe riod 2000 – 2006 sets pri or i -ties for all trans port sub-sectors, e.g. de vel op ment of roads, rail roads,ports and air ports, how ever most of the at ten tion is paid to the de vel op -ment of the Via Baltica road cor ri dor and mod erni sa tion of East – Westrail way cor ri dor where the larg est share of ISPA trans port funds are di -rected.

In No vem ber 2001, Lat via com pleted the first ISPA pro ject in Lat -via — this was also the first com pleted pro ject in all ac ces sion coun tries– that was “Im prove ment of Via Baltica road (Pan Eu ro pean Cor ri dorI) from km 13 (Gauja) to km 21,2 (Lilaste) in Lat via” the to tal cost ofwhich was EUR 6,25 mil lion out of which 75 per cent or EUR 4,69 mil -lion was ISPA money. The pro ject was eval u ated as suc cess ful and pro -

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vid ing a good ex am ple of pro ject im ple men ta tion. It is rec og nized that it con trib utes to the in crease of se cu rity both for driv ers and for pe des tri -ans.

Due to the ne ces sity to co-finance these pro jects from the state bud -get there is sig nif i cantly less money left for reg u lar road main te nanceand rep a ra tion works. It is now of fi cially rec og nized that the roads are in al most crit i cal con di tion and this of course is very much linked withroad safety and en vi ron men tal in ter ests. As all fi nanc ing is chan neled toViaBaltica, that is the only state road in cluded in TENs, and the ne ces -sity to co-finance it from state bud get it re sults in sig nif i cantly lessmoney for so-called sec ond ary roads. Thus, other parts of Lat via apartfrom ViaBaltica ben e fit not at all and ISPA funds are in di rectly con trib -ut ing to the de te ri o ra tion of the gen eral road con di tion in Lat via.

SAPARDSAPARD in Lat via is sup posed to al lo cate ap prox i mately EUR

21,85 mil lion an nu ally. Na tional level co-ordination of SAPARDprogramme is done by Min is try of Ag ri cul ture, but Ru ral Sup port Ser -vice is the main SAPARD im ple men ta tion body.

De spite the adop tion of the Ru ral De vel op ment Plan for Lat via(2000 – 2006) by the EC on Oc to ber 25, 2000, SAPARD had se ri ous de -lays. Most of them were con nected to the es tab lish ment of a func tion ing Ru ral Sup port Ser vice (RSS) that ful fils the func tions of SAPARD Pay -ment Agency. Finally on De cem ber 12, 2001, it re ceived ac cred i ta tionfrom the Eu ro pean Com mis sion. Al ready the next day – on De cem ber13, RSS started to ac cept pro ject pro pos als, and thus af ter two years ofwait ing farm ers fi nally could ap ply for SAPARD. There is still no fi nalagree ment on how the fi nan cial scheme would look once it is reached.

Prep a ra tion of the SAPARD plan for Lat via largely dem on stratedthe part ner ship prin ci ple. Prior to ap prov ing Lat vian pri or i ties forSAPARD fi nanc ing, con sul ta tions with socio-economic part ners wereheld in 26 dis tricts (cur rent ad min is tra tive di vi sion) of Lat via, where lo -cal mu nic i pal i ties, ag ri cul tural de part ments, farm ers un ions, ru ral

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NGOs and ag ri cul tural con sul ta tive coun cils were in volved. SAPARDis the most widely dis cussed EU pre-accession aid in stru ment in Lat via.

Pri or ities of the SAPARD programme in Lat via (with rough split offi nanc ing among pri or i ties):

• in vest ments in ag ri cul tural hold ings (27 per cent);• de vel op ment and di ver si fi ca tion of eco nomic ac tiv i ties pro vid ing

al ter na tive in come (20 per cent); • af for es ta tion of ag ri cul tural lands (three per cent); • im prove ment of gen eral ru ral in fra struc ture (12 per cent); • im prove ment of ag ri cul ture and fish er ies prod uct pro cess ing and

mar ket ing (28-30 per cent);• en vi ron men tally friendly ag ri cul ture meth ods (two – four per -

cent); and • ed u ca tional ac tiv i ties for farm ers (six per cent). Though sup port for en vi ron men tally friendly ag ri cul ture meth ods

and its sub-programmes – or ganic, main te nance of bi o log i cal di ver sityand ru ral land scape and re duc tion of ag ri cul tural run-off are men tionedamong pri or i ties, but there is no money fore seen for those ac tiv i ties in2000 – 2002 and for other years the amount is tiny.

The SAPARD Monitoring Committee con sists of rep re sen ta tivesfrom the Min is try of Ag ri cul ture, sec tor min is tries, rep re sen ta tives ofBoard for Co op er a tion of Ag ri cul tural Or gani sa tions. In for ma tionabout meet ings (prior to the meet ings) of the Com mit tee and min utesfrom the meet ings are avail able at the homepage of the Min is try of Ag ri -cul ture. It should be pointed out that in the Com mit tee’s meet ing inSep tem ber, changes in the Ru ral De vel op ment Programme were ac -cepted, de cid ing to lay aside idea of Ex pert coun cils and Part ner shipcoun cils. This de ci sion brought greater trans par ency and was the fi nalstep to wards get ting ac cred i ta tion for RSS.

In for ma tion dis tri bu tion has been fairly good – cor re spond ing tothe in ter est from farm ers, lots of in for ma tional ma te ri als aboutSAPARD were pre pared and in for ma tive and ed u ca tional sem i nars or -gan ised in many towns in Lat via. Al to gether about 130 sem i nars wereor gan ised all around Lat via in 2001 with the aim of in form ing farm ers

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about the SAPARD programme and pos si bil i ties for ap ply ing for fi -nanc ing. These ac tiv i ties were car ried out in the frame work of a Lat vian– Den mark co op er a tion pro ject “Sup port for im ple men ta tion ofSAPARD programme.” The pro ject was car ried out by ag ri cul turalNGOs that are united in the Board for Co-operation of Ag ri cul tural Or -gani sa tions. This Board plays a cru cial role in for mu lat ing ag ri cul turalpol icy in Lat via.

Al though SAPARD im ple men ta tion prog ress in in sti tu tional ad just -ment and de creas ing the rate of bu reau cracy can be mon i tored, mak ingchanges in SAPARD programmes still re quires much time. Re quire -ments for SAPARD as sis tance are some times re ferred to as too com pli -cated. Es pe cially the liv abil ity in dex, which is set at a min i mum level of20 per cent, has cre ated lots of frus tra tion and dis sat is fac tion es pe ciallyfrom small-scale farm ers and those prac tis ing or ganic farm ing. Be causeof SAPARD re quire ments, only some 30 per cent of Lat vian farm ers areel i gi ble for ap ply ing for SAPARD. The ag ri cul tural NGO “FarmersPar lia ment” has re peat edly raised their con cerns about SAPARD re -quire ments and cri te ria that sig nif i cantly de crease the num ber of farm -ers that can ap ply for SAPARD. In ad di tion, fi nanc ing from theSAPARD programme is as signed from ag ri cul tural sub si dies, thus those who do not meet SAPARD re quire ments are sub stan tial los ers in thissit u a tion.

Pro ject se lec tion was or gan ised in two rounds. Af ter the first dead -line had passed, 30 pro ject pro pos als were re ceived in RSS and out ofthem 29 were sent for eval u a tion in the sec ond round to the Cen tralBoard of RSS (one pro posal was re jected). Thus the level of prep a ra tionis fairly good and lots of doc u ments are re quired from farm ers. Most ofpro jects were pro posed for mod erni sa tion of ag ri cul tural hold ings andequip ment and some pro posed de vel op ment of tour ism ac tiv i ties in ru -ral ar eas (un der the ob jec tive of di ver si fi ca tion of ru ral ac tiv i ties). Here -af ter, calls for pro pos als for SAPARD will be or gan ised two times ayear.

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PHARE Programme PHARE programme played an im por tant role prior to 2000, when

EU pre-accession funds were made avail able to Lat via. In the pe riod1992-1999, to tal sup port from the PHARE programme for Lat viaamounted to EUR 248,2 mil lion. Starting from year 2000 un til 2006, there struc tured PHARE programme al lo cates ap prox i mately EUR 30 mil -lion an nu ally.

Tra di tionally, PHARE sup port went for im ple men ta tion of acquiscommunautaire, so cial in te gra tion and strength en ing of the East ern bor -der and, till 2000, the de vel op ment of ag ri cul tural, en vi ron men tal andtrans port sec tors. The gen eral ob jec tives of PHARE 2000+ are sup portfor in vest ments in acquis, in sti tu tion build ing, par tic i pa tion in EUProgrammes, in vest ments into eco nomic and so cial co he sion and crossbor der co op er a tion.

Co -or di na tion of the PHARE 2000+ programme is en sured by thePHARE Working group and United Mon i toring Com mit tee. TheBoard for Re gional Pol icy and Planning is con sult ing with Re gional De -vel op ment Agencies about use of PHARE funds that are to be spent for eco nomic and so cial co he sion and in vest ments in this ob jec tive are splitac cord ing to five plan ning re gions (NUTS III level). EUR nine mil lionwere fore seen for this ob jec tive in 2001. Al though in 2000, fi nanc ing for eco nomic and so cial co he sion was used for sup port of two so-called tar -get re gions (out of five), start ing from 2001 this fi nanc ing as pro posedby Eu ro pean Com mis sion will use the same ap proach as in the EU forOb jec tive 1 re gions for Struc tural funds, e.g. for sup port of en tre pre -neur ship, de vel op ment of hu man re sources and de vel op ment of in fra -struc ture needed for en tre pre neur ship.

It is in ter est ing that some small-scale en vi ron men tal pro jects thatqual ify un der the frame of “cross-border co-operation” are still sup -ported. The cri te ria usu ally used for these en vi ron men tal pro jects is size– those pro jects that do not meet the ISPA EUR five mil lion thresh oldcri te ria can get sup port from PHARE.

It is too early to make as sess ments about the ef fec tive ness ofPHARE 2000+ funds. How ever, fi nanc ing for eco nomic and so cial co -he sion can play a cru cial role as re gional de vel op ment is very un bal -

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anced and the PHARE programme may pro vide sig nif i cant fi nan cialsup port for re duc ing this im bal ance.

Con clu sions Ap pro pri ate pub lic in volve ment in the im ple men ta tion of EU

pre-accession funds and in the EU en large ment pro cess in gen eral islack ing, es pe cially when pre par ing stra te gic plans and programmes suchas the Na tional De vel op ment Plan. Pub lic au thor i ties some times be -lieve that it is enough to or gan ise a press con fer ence. Al though there arepos i tive ini tia tives such as the ISPA Com mu ni ca tion strat egy, it is stillmore fo cused on im ple men ta tion and not on NGO par tic i pa tion in thede ci sion-making stage.

NGO par tic i pa tion on Mon i toring Committees dif fer – theSAPARD Mon i toring Com mit tee con sists of state of fi cials and NGOswhile the ISPA Mon i toring Com mit tee has ex cep tion ally ac ceptedNGO rep re sen ta tives with the ob server sta tus.

ISPA pro ject se lec tion and im ple men ta tion is cen tral ised, as there isa need for co-financing be cause mu nic i pal i ties lack their own funds.How ever, greater trans par ency should be en cour aged, as there are in di -ca tions of mis us ing the money as in cases of bad work of con sult ingcom pa nies.

There is still no clear mech a nism on how the eval u a tion of cer tainISPA pro jects and ISPA na tional programmes as such will be done. En -vi ron men tal NGOs con sider the con duct ing of Stra te gic En vi ron men -tal As sess ment to be cru cial for the NDP.

SAPARD has cre ated a high in ter est among Lat vian farm ers. Theim ple men ta tion of the SAPARD programme is marked with a par tic i pa -tory ap proach and is con sid ered to be the most trans par ent of thepre-accession in stru ments. How ever, SAPARD cri te ria and all its bu -reau cratic re quire ments have led to a sit u a tion where only some 30 per -cent of farm ers can ap ply for SAPARD. Be sides, it is vir tu allyim pos si ble for small-scale farm ers and those prac tis ing or ganic farm ingto get sup port from SAPARD.

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Lith u a nia

Na tional De vel op ment PlanThe na tional de vel op ment plan for Lith u a nia was pre pared and ap -

proved with out any pub lic par tic i pa tion in Oc to ber 2001. The Lith u a -nian Green Move ment to gether with other en vi ron men tal NGOsex plic itly asked to be in volved in the prep a ra tion of the NDP. The NDP was pre pared by the min is tries with con sul ta tions of some so cial andeco nomic part ners such as trade un ions.

There is an other Na tional De vel op ment Plan un der prep a ra tion forthe uti li za tion of the EU struc tural funds and sup port af ter ex pected ac -ces sion in 2004. The Min is try of Fi nances is re spon si ble for the prep a ra -tion of this plan. Lith u a nian Green Move ment rec om mended thispro cess be made open to NGOs and asked re spon si ble of fi cials to in -volve NGOs from as many sec tors as pos si ble. A mech a nism for NGOin volve ment needed to be dis cussed with re spon si ble of fi cials. As theprep a ra tion of this plan is be ing hur ried, like most EU re lated pro jectsand doc u ments, NGOs have se ri ous doubts about the ef fec tive ness and par tic i pa tory ap proach of the new NDP as well. Ac cord ing to the of fi -cials, the new NDP needs to be pre pared and ap proved on the na tionallevel be fore the end of 2003.

The cur rent NDP was de signed to guide and man age the use ofpre-accession aid dur ing the pe riod of 2000-2004. The im ple men ta tionof this plan is based on ex ist ing gov ern men tal struc tures and in sti tu -tional ca pac i ties.

The Lith u a nian Gov ern ment ap proved the in sti tu tional struc turefor the ad min is tra tion of EU pre-accession fund ing (ISPA, PHARE,SAPARD) in July 2001. The Min is try of Fi nances was ap proved as theNa tional Sup port Co or di na tor and Na tional ISPA Co or di na tor. AllPre-Accession aid is as signed by the Na tional Au tho rizing Of fi cerwhich is gov erned by the Na tional Fund, set up in the Min is try of Fi -nance.

The Na tional Fund, as an in te gral part of the Min is try of Fi nance,will be re spon si ble for the man age ment of the Eu ro pean Re gional De -

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vel op ment Fund af ter join ing the EU. The Min is try of Ag ri cul ture andFor est Man age ment will serve as the Pay ment Agency of the Eu ro peanGuid ance and Guar an tee Fund, and of the Fi nan cial In stru ment for theFish eries Guid ance. The Min is try of So cial Pro tec tion and La bor willserve as the Pay ment Agency of the Eu ro pean So cial Fund. Cur rentlythis min is try is man ag ing the de vel op ment of hu man re sources sup -ported by PHARE 2000+. Both min is tries are prac tic ing man age mentskills and build ing in sti tu tional ca pac ity while ad min is trat ing SAPARDand PHARE sup port.

PHARE 2000+ Eco nomic and So cial Co he sion part is man aged bytwo other min is tries. Part of the PHARE sup port (for the Small andMe dium En ter prises, busi ness de vel op ment) is ad min is trated by theMin is try of Econ omy. PHARE 2000+ sup port for re gional de vel op -ment is ad min is trated by the Min is try of In ter nal Af fairs.

Programme Of fi cers for the PHARE 2000+ im ple men ta tion are ap -pointed in the min is tries.

The Main in sti tu tion for gen eral PHARE 2000+ man age ment is theCen tral Fi nancing and Con tracting Agency. Man age ment of ISPA is di -vided be tween the Min is try of En vi ron ment (ISPA En vi ron ment) andthe Min is try of Com mu ni ca tions (ISPA Trans port).

Mon i toring and Eval u a tion of Pre-Accession AidA Joint Mon i toring Com mit tee will con trol and su per vise im ple -

men ta tion of the PHARE programme. There will be joint meet ings andex change of in for ma tion be tween the Su per vi sion Com mit tees ofSAPARD and ISPA to en sure proper man age ment and co or di na tion ofthese three pre-accession in stru ments.

All of these mon i tor ing com mit tees will be es tab lished ac cord ing topart ner ship prin ci ples. The Na tional Sup port Co or di na tor and Na tional ISPA Co or di na tor (both from Min is try of Fi nance) to gether with theSAPARD man age ment in sti tu tion (Min is try of Ag ri cul ture) will as sistthe mon i tor ing com mit tees with in for ma tion and data.

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So far, two NGO rep re sen ta tives have been ap pointed and ap -proved by the Gov ern ment for the SAPARD Su per vi sion Com mit tee(Mrs. Ruta Vaiciunaite, Lith u a nian Fund for Na ture) and the ISPA En -vi ron ment Co or di na tion Coun cil (Mr. Linas Vainius, Lith u a nian GreenMove ment/Friends of the Earth Lith u a nia).

Dur ing two sem i nars of en vi ron men tal NGOs, such ap point mentswere eval u ated as pro gres sive steps by the Gov ern ment (es pe cially com -pared to some coun tries where NGOs were re fused such op por tu nity)and a move to wards a more par tic i pa tory ap proach in pre-accession aidman age ment.

ISPAThe ISPA Co or di na tion Coun cil was es tab lished and ap proved by

the Min is ter of En vi ron ment on 12 No vem ber 2001. The Min is ter ofEn vi ron ment is the Head of the Coun cil. There are rep re sen ta tivesfrom the Min is tries of Fi nance, Econ omy, In ter nal Af fairs, En vi ron -ment, the EC del e ga tion in Lith u a nia, the As so ci a tion of the Mu nic i pal -ities, and an NGO rep re sen ta tive (Lith u a nian Green Move ment). TheISPA Co or di na tion Coun cil is re spon si ble for the mon i tor ing and ap -proval of ISPA pro jects.

Fi nancingISPA fi nanc ing in Lith u a nia is planned to be an an nual con tri bu tion

of EUR 25 mil lion dur ing the years 2000-2006. Gen eral in dic a tive com -po si tion of ISPA pro ject fi nanc ing: 50 per cent of ISPA sub sidy, 30 per -cent of loan and 20 per cent of na tional bud get con tri bu tion.

Planned na tional bud get sub si dies are EUR ten mil lion/an nual, andmu nic i pal en vi ron men tal funds EUR 15 mil lion/an nual. En vi ron men -tal in vest ment fund EUR two mil lion + 20 per cent of the pol lu tiontaxes. The waste man age ment fund (col lected from pack ag ing taxes)and pri vate in vest ments will con trib ute to the co-financing of en vi ron -men tal pro jects as well. Al to gether, en vi ron men tal in vest ments willmake up to 1,5 per cent of the to tal na tional bud get. The ma jor ex pected

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lend ers are the EIB and the Eu ro pean Bank for Re con struc tion and De -vel op ment (EBRD) to gether with bi lat eral aid and pri vate in ves tors.

Ex pen di tures for wa ter sup ply and waste wa ter man age ment shouldnot ex ceed four per cent of the av er age fam ily bud get. This is an im por -tant cri te ria in flu enc ing the fi nan cial pack age of waste wa ter treat mentpro jects. In some cases, the amount of ISPA con tri bu tion or state sub -sidy might in crease com pared to the loan.

Pri or itiesISPA is pri mar ily used to im ple ment the “most ex pen sive” EU en vi -

ron men tal di rec tives. Costs for the im ple men ta tion of ur ban waste wa -ter di rec tives and the im prove ment of drink ing wa ter are EUR 443,9mil lion, ac cord ing to cur rent es ti ma tions. Lith u a nia re ceived a tran si tion pe riod un til 2010 for this di rec tive. ISPA and other EU sup port, to -gether with loans from IFIs and na tional bud get sub si dies, will be pri -mar ily tar geted to build or up grade waste wa ter treat ment fa cil i ties andsew age sys tems, and to ren o vate and mod ern ise drink ing wa ter sup plysys tems in most Lith u a nian cit ies.

Land fills, mu nic i pal waste man age ment and pack ag ing waste man -age ment are other “ex pen sive” di rec tives, with es ti mated costs of EUR319,4 mil lion un til 2010. The con struc tion of new re gional mu nic i palland fills, clo sure of old land fills, in stal la tion of land fill gas col lec tion sys -tems, and mon i tor ing of en vi ron men tal qual ity will be fi nanced fromthe na tional bud get and EU sup port.

In vest ments in the re duc tion of air pol lu tion is es ti mated at EUR155 mil lion (only large com bus tion plants and BAT ac cord ing to theIPPC). In vest ments in the re duc tion of air pol lu tion are ex pected frompri vate com pa nies. Ap pli ca tions for ISPA fi nanc ing are in the dis cus -sion stage to start af ter 2003, but have n’t been ap proved yet.The mainISPA sup port was tar geted to waste wa ter and mu nic i pal waste man age -ment in 2000-2002.

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Waste Wa ter Man age mentWaste wa ter man age ment is planned ac cord ing to river ba sin man -

age ment schemes. This es pe cially ap plies to smaller pro jects, where afew towns are con nected into one pro ject (over com ing the EUR fivemil lion “bar rier”).

There were two wa ter pro jects (to tal EUR 23,575 mil lion) fi nancedfrom ISPA 2000 in Vilnius and Druskininkai. There were three wa terpro jects (to tal EUR 26,7 mil lion) from ISPA 2001 in Kaunas, Jonavaand Neringa. Three pro jects (to tal EUR 12,3 mil lion) are planned fromISPA 2002 un der river ba sin schemes (Radviliskis, Kedainiai, Plungeand Mazeikiai).

Mu nic i pal Waste Man age mentThere are ten re gional mu nic i pal waste man age ment sys tems

planned un der ISPA fi nanc ing dur ing 2000-2006. Three pro jects havestarted al ready, in Alytus, Siauliai and Taurage (ISPA 2001). Three pro -jects are un der prep a ra tion for ISPA 2002 (Vilnius, Klaipeda andMarijampole). Four other pro jects are fore seen for ISPA in 2003-2006.

This na tional plan of re gional mu nic i pal waste man age ment fa cil i ties is fore seen to cover the whole coun try of Lith u a nia. All mu nic i pal wastewill be col lected in these re gional land fills. Part of it will be de pos ited inland fills, the rest will be sorted ac cord ing the EU waste man age ment re -quire ments de scribed in EC di rec tives and the 6th En vi ron men tal Ac -tion Plan.

There are plans to build a haz ard ous waste in cin er a tor some where in Lith u a nia, but a fea si bil ity study should be done be fore it be gins. Thenum ber of ISPA pro jects in creased from two pro jects (2000) to six en vi -ron men tal pro jects fi nanced from ISPA in 2001. Six pro jects areplanned for ISPA in 2002. All of the pro jects could be char ac ter ised bytheir in ten sive ma te rial and en ergy use.

Trans portISPA Trans port pro jects tra di tion ally fol low EU re quire ments for

the join ing of Trans-European Net work and TINA cri te ria. There fore,

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ISPA Trans port pri or i ties are im prove ment of the TINA net workthrough large in fra struc ture trans port in vest ment pro jects. The Min is try of Com mu ni ca tions is re spon si ble for the pro ject prep a ra tion.

The to tal es ti mated costs of TINA net work im ple men ta tion areEUR 2 300 mil lion till 2015 in Lith u a nia. Mod ern iza tion of rail ways:EUR 1 222,9 mil lion; roads: EUR 519 mil lion; sea ports: EUR 460,7mil lion; air ports: EUR 92,5 mil lion. The Min is try of Com mu ni ca tionsex pects in creased fi nanc ing for the TINA pro jects af ter EU ac ces sion.For this rea son, a ma jor amount of in vest ments (61 per cent) is fore seendur ing the years 2011-2015.

ISPA Trans port in vest ments are guided by the TINA net work re -port with prep a ra tion of con crete in vest ment pro jects. The Na tionalISPA-Transport strat egy was pre pared for ISPA fund ing man age ment.This strat egy is not pub licly avail able. Strat egy prep a ra tion, au dit, eval u -a tion was done by the Min is try of Com mu ni ca tions. Tech ni cal, fi nan cial and ad min is tra tive man age ment of the pro jects de pends on the in sti tu -tions of Min is try of Com mu ni ca tions. Re cip i ents of ISPA fi nanc ing arecom pa nies man ag ing dif fer ent trans port in fra struc tures: Rail way com -pany, ad min is tra tions of the re gional roads, Board of the Klaipeda port,air port ad min is tra tion. All these in sti tu tions be long to the reg u la tion ofthe Min is try of Com mu ni ca tion; they are called Im ple menting in sti tu -tions and act ac cord ing to writ ten agree ment and shared func tions.Prac ti cal pro ject prep a ra tion, ten der, con tract ing, su per vi sion of the im -ple men ta tion de pend to the re cip i ent of the ISPA fund ing.

So far, six ISPA trans port pro jects (to tal EUR 118 mil lion) were ap -proved in 2000-2001. Three of them are rail way pro jects and three areroad pro jects. There are two road pro jects planned from ISPA 2002with a to tal amount of EUR 25,7 mil lion. The road pro jects areco-financed by EIB. All pre sented rail way pro jects may re ceive ISPA fi -nanc ing, as they have se cured co-financing from the EIB, be cause of anagree ment with the EC to use the ex ist ing EIB loan for rail way mod -erni sa tion as co-financing.

Prob lems with ISPA fi nanc ing, as seen by the Min is try of Com mu -ni ca tion:

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• ad min is tra tive ca pac ity for the pro ject prep a ra tion and man age -ment, es pe cially in the later stage of im ple men ta tion, au dit and re -port ing;

• in creas ing amount of EU fi nanc ing (ex pected to tri ple from theCo he sion funds af ter ac ces sion);

• guar an ties of na tional fi nanc ing and mo bi li za tion of re sources for the full pro ject fi nanc ing and im ple men ta tion;

• miss ing le gal ba sis for sus tain able pro ject fi nanc ing (in rail waysec tor);

• po ten tial in ten tions to re vise ISPA pro jects in fa vour of rail ways;• miss ing in sti tu tional and ad min is tra tive ca pac i ties in the Lith u a -

nian Rail way com pany to pre pare bank able pro jects; and• un clear strat egy with de vel op ment of the na tional rail way sys tem.Ac cord ing to the Min is try of Com mu ni ca tion, these prob lems

might en dan ger re ceipt of EU fi nanc ing for trans port in fra struc ture inthe fu ture. Ac cord ing to the Lith u a nian Green Move ment, the Lith u a -nian ISPA trans port port fo lio was al most bal anced be tween road andrail way in 2000-2001. How ever, more road pro jects will be fi nanced in2002. Pre vi ous trans port in fra struc ture pro jects could be char ac ter isedas re con struc tion and mod ern iza tion pro jects. There are con tin u ous fi -nanc ing of up grad ing Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipeda motor way known asIXB trans port cor ri dor and Via-Baltica (Pan-European cor ri dor I).

Pub lic Par tic i pa tion and Ac cess to In for ma tionNoth ing has changed since the pre vi ous years of ISPA pro ject fi -

nanc ing and the Min is try of Com mu ni ca tion re mains a “leader” with itspoor re cord re gard ing avail abil ity of in for ma tion for trans port de vel op -ment pro jects and us age of pre-accession funds. As dur ing the pre vi ousyears, all de ci sions about pro ject se lec tion and fi nanc ing are taken by the au thor i ties of Min is try of Com mu ni ca tion. The pub lic and NGOs haveno ac cess to this pro cess.

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ISPA Trans port and En vi ron mentThe same “sta ble” sit u a tion with pub lic par tic i pa tion re mains with

en vi ron men tal pro tec tion as well. This sit u a tion is de ter mined by na -tional leg is la tion which does not re quire full EIA pro ce dures for trans -port in fra struc ture mod ern iza tion and up grade pro jects. Pro jects arere vised by the re gional en vi ron men tal pro tec tion de part ments of theMoE. EIA ex perts pro pose some mea sures for en vi ron men tal pro tec -tion dur ing road re con struc tion. The Lith u a nian Green Move ment andLith u a nian So ci ety of Or ni thol o gists started to ques tion the im pacts ofthe TINA and ISPA pro jects for the en vi ron ment. Lith u a nian GreenMove ment pre pared a let ter to the Min is try of En vi ron ment, ask ing theMin is ter to de mand so lu tions for the pro tec tion of biodiversity (by paths and other en gi neer ing in fra struc ture) as an in te gral part of pro ject prep -a ra tion and im ple men ta tion. Ac cord ing to Green Move ment’s opin ionthese mea sures should be in cluded into the fi nan cial schemes of theISPA pro jects.

The So ci ety of or ni thol o gists re vised all in fra struc ture pro jects andtheir po ten tial in flu ence on the en vi ron ment. None of the road pro jects is cross ing valu able nat u ral ar eas so far. River com mu ni ca tion pro jectsare po ten tially the most dan ger ous for pro tected bird ar eas, but thesepro jects are not fi nanced by ISPA. Nev er the less, ac cord ing the opin ionof Green Move ment, in vest ments into road de vel op ment will have ad -verse im pacts on the en vi ron ment through the in crease of traf fic in ten -sity, fol lowed by in creased air pol lu tion and noise.

PHAREMost of the PHARE 2000+ pro jects are tar geted at the in sti tu tional

de vel op ment and ca pac ity build ing of the min is tries and other gov ern -men tal in sti tu tions. There were cross-border is sues, so cial and eco -nomic co he sion pro jects fi nanced from PHARE 2000 and PHARE2001. Three en vi ron men tal pro jects of waste wa ter treat ment, wa tersew age and sup ply sys tems (to tal EUR eight mil lion) were fi nancedfrom PHARE 2001.

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Eco nomic and so cial co he sion pro jects (to tal EUR 14 mil lion) fo -cused on the Na tional and re gional de vel op ment were held in threemost un de vel oped re gions (Klaipeda-Taurage, Utena andMarijampole).

SAPARDLong Start

The SAPARD Programme started af ter a long de lay of al most twoyears in Lith u a nia. Nev er the less, Lith u a nia was fourth among ten can di -date coun tries sign ing all the nec es sary agree ments to start ad min is tra -tion of EC SAPARD programme money. Prep a ra tion for theim ple men ta tion of SAPARD started in Lith u a nia in 1999. The Eu ro -pean Com mis sion ap proved the Ag ri cul ture and Ru ral De vel op mentProgramme in No vem ber 2000. The nec es sary agree ments be tween theEC and the Gov ern ment of Lith u a nia were signed on March 5, 2001.Then the Min is try of Fi nances of Lith u a nia ap proved ac cred i ta tion ofthe Na tional Pay ment Agency to ad min is trate five of eight mea sures ofSAPARD in June 2001. Finally, DG Ag ri cul ture con firmed the Na tional Pay ment Agency and rec om mended to start SAPARD in Lith u a nia onNo vem ber 2001. Col lec tion of ap pli ca tions started in De cem ber of2001.

Man age ment of the SAPARDSAPARD sup port in Lith u a nia (like in other Pre-accession coun -

tries) is based on the Multi-Annual Fi nancing Agree ment be tween theEu ro pean Com mis sion and the Gov ern ment of Lith u a nia. This Agree -ment lays down the tech ni cal, le gal and ad min is tra tive frame work un der which the Ag ri cul ture and Ru ral De vel op ment Programme shall be ex e -cuted in the coun try. Lith u a nia shall en sure the proper ex e cu tion of theProgramme on a de cen tral ized ba sis in ac cor dance with the pro vi sionsof this Agree ment.

The Multi-Annual Agree ment de scribes all con di tions and pro ce -dures about how fi nan cial sup port of EU should be man aged, ad min is -trated, mon i tored and eval u ated. All in sti tu tions re spon si ble for the

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man age ment of SAPARD and de tailed pro ce dures for the se lec tion, ap -proval of ap pli ca tion and dis tri bu tion of money are de scribed in the An -nex of this Agree ment. Based on the Multi-Annual Fi nancingAgree ment, the An nual Fi nancing Agree ment will be con cluded be -tween EC and Gov ern ment of Lith u a nia each year. The fi nan cial com -mit ment of the EC will be set out in the An nual Agree ments. The firstAn nual Fi nancing Agree ment signed be tween the EC and the Lith u a -nian Gov ern ment was for an EU con tri bu tion of EUR 30 339 535 forSAPARD 2000.

Fi nancing of the SAPARDLith u a nia will re ceive about EUR 29,829 mil lion an nu ally un der the

SAPARD programme dur ing the years 2000-2006. Sup port un der theSAPARD programme will be granted, pro vided it is co-financed fromthe na tional sup port funds. There fore, in vest ment pro jects shall be fi -nanced un der the fol low ing scheme:

To tal pro ject value - 100%

Pri vate funds 50% State supports 50%

SAPARD 75% Na tional bud get 25%

Other Sup port In ad di tion to the SAPARD, the Lith u a nian ag ri cul tural sec tor will

re ceive EUR 14 mil lion from the PHARE programme (1999-2001).This sup port was fore seen for in sti tu tional strength en ing and ca pac itybuild ing of au thor i ties.

Ac cord ing to var i ous sources, the es ti mated to tal amount of gen er -ated sup port could reach around EUR 550 mil lion (in clud ingco-financing, state sup port programme and pri vate sec tor) dur ing2001-2006 years.

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SAPARD Mea suresAs men tioned above, only five of eight mea sures are sup ported

from SAPARD 2000: 1) In vest ment in Ag ri cul tural Hold ings. 2) Im proving the Pro cessing and Mar keting of Ag ri cul tural and

Fish ery Prod ucts. 3) De vel op ment and Di ver si fi ca tion of Eco nomic Ac tiv ities Pro -

viding for Mul ti ple Ac tiv ities and al ter na tive In come. 4) Im prove ment of Ru ral In fra struc ture. 5) Vo ca tional Training.There is no fi nanc ing for the Af for es ta tion of the Ag ri cul tural Land

and Im prove ment of the For est In fra struc ture, En vi ron mentallyFriendly Ag ri cul tural Methods and Tech ni cal As sis tance, In for ma tionand Pub lic ity Cam paigns from SAPARD 2000.

It is ex pected that fi nanc ing for these sec tors will start fromSAPARD 2002.

The to tal el i gi ble costs for the Af for es ta tion are: EUR 7,687 mil lion(EUR 20,498 mil lion in clud ing state and pri vate con tri bu tions).

En vi ron mentally Friendly Ag ri cul tural MethodsThe to tal el i gi ble costs for the En vi ron mentally Friendly Ag ri cul ture

are: EUR 2,124 mil lion (EUR 2,832 mil lion, in clud ing state con tri bu -tion). This only one per cent of the to tal SAPARD sup port dur ing theen tire pe riod.

The mea sure will be ap pli ca ble in two pi lot ar eas. One pi lot area wascho sen in in ten sive ag ri cul ture area in the mid dle of Lith u a nia. An otherspe cific pi lot area has been se lected in Rusne Is land, the big gest is land in the Nemunas river delta. De spite a rel a tively small ter ri tory of 4 691 ha,it is of ex cep tional im por tance for biodiversity on both na tional and in -ter na tional lev els. The Nemunas delta is the big gest riverine floodplainwet land in Lith u a nia. The is land is a part of the only riverine wet land

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among the five Ramsar sites des ig nated in Lith u a nia. The en tire re gionhas long stand ing ag ri cul tural and drain age tra di tions.

The gen eral agri-environmental sub-measures, which could be ap -pli ca ble in both pi lot ar eas, are:

• fer til iz ing and proper ma nure han dling;• pro tec tive belts and other tech ni cal mea sures;• land scape pro tec tion and in crease of biodiversity;• pres er va tion of his toric and ar chae o log i cal ob jects;• keep ing of do mes tic an i mal breeds in dan ger of ex tinc tion; and• or ganic ag ri cul ture.Rusne Is land pi lot area sub-measures, ap pli ca ble only in sum mer

pol ders of Rusne Is land:• pro tec tion of breed ing and mi grat ing birds and stim u la tion of

re-naturalisation of grass lands;• res to ra tion of aban doned mead ows;• pro tec tion of corncrakes;• pro tec tion of breed ing hab i tats of Aquatic War bler; and• pro tec tion of lo cal i ties of Calamagrostis pseudophragmites.This mea sure is re lated to the mea sures “In vest ments in ag ri cul tural

hold ings,” “De vel op ment and di ver si fi ca tion of eco nomic ac tiv i ties,pro vid ing for mul ti ple ac tiv i ties and al ter na tive in come” and “Vo ca -tional train ing.”

There were 121 ap pli ca tions pre sented for the first stage ofSAPARD 2000 and ten of them have al ready been ap proved. Six are inthe pipe line and will be ap proved soon. Most of the in vest ments are go -ing into the milk sec tor, some for meat pro duc tion. Pro ject ap pli ca tionswill be se lected and re vised twice a year.

Re marks about SAPARDThe per cent age of sup port for the en vi ron men tally friendly ag ri cul -

ture is too low. It was in cluded in the Lith u a nian SAPARD programmeonly af ter strong in sis tence of en vi ron men tal NGOs and the Com mis -

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sion it self at the “last min ute”. There is the small est share of SAPARDsup port for agro-environmental mea sure which cov ers the small estamount of land (less than 4 700 ha) if one com pares it to otherpre-accession coun tries (ex clud ing Es to nia where the per cent age is alsolow). Other CEE coun tries al lo cated two to five per cent of SAPARDsup port cov er ing ap prox i mately 30 000-40 000 ha of land (Hun gary 400000). Only Slovenia has not fore seen any sup port for En vi ron mentallyFriendly Ag ri cul tural Methods.

Many farm ers have crit i cized the com pli cated pro ce dures and re -quire ments for the 100 per cent of in vest ments be fore they would get re -pay ment. An other crit i cal as pect is that small farms can not get thesup port. Farmers pay up to 20 per cent of sup port for the prep a ra tion ofthe busi ness plans and ap pli ca tions. Farms with for eign cap i tal have anad van tage over lo cal farm ers.

En vi ron men tal pro tec tion was also men tioned as a po ten tial ob sta -cle, be cause farm ers need to make En vi ron men tal Im pact As sess mentsof their pro jects and meet stricter en vi ron men tal stan dards.

Most of this crit i cism is just the first re ac tion of the farm ers andfood re pro cess ing in dus try. Farmers face a lot of trou ble in get ting sup -port, which is not con nected di rectly to SAPARD, but is de ter mined bythe na tional ag ri cul tural re form.

Con clu sionsThe se lec tion of pro jects for Pre-Accession fi nanc ing and de ci sion

mak ing re mains a heavily cen tral ised pro cess. How ever, some pos i tivechanges could be de ter mined. The SAPARD and ISPA En vi ron mentde ci sion mak ing bod ies in vited NGO rep re sen ta tives, thus en abling in -ter ested NGOs to get di rect ac cess to in for ma tion and de ci sion mak ing.En vi ron men tal NGOs de cided to be more ac tively in volved in de ci sion mak ing on the use of pre-accession funds in more sus tain able man ner.SAPARD and ISPA En vi ron ment are the most in ter est ing sec tors forNGOs. They see SAPARD as an im por tant tool for the pro mo tion ofsus tain able ag ri cul tural sec tor de vel op ment and a po ten tial source for fi -nanc ing small en vi ron men tally friendly pro jects.

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There are many pos i tive im prove ments in ac cess to in for ma tionabout pre-accession fund ing. SAPARD still re main as a leader in ac cessto in for ma tion. More and more in for ma tion is pre sented in the me diaabout sin gle pro jects. Many Lith u a nian NGOs were up dated on the sit -u a tion about all pre-accession fund ing and de bated it dur ing two sem i -nars or ga nized by the Lith u a nian Green Move ment in Oc to ber 2001.

But over all use of pre-accession funds can be char ac ter ised as a pro -cess man aged and in flu enced by a nar row cir cle of au thor i ties and pro -fes sion als. It’s too so phis ti cated, too in ten sive, too com pli cated and stilltoo closed for the gen eral pub lic.

In gen eral, pro jects can be char ac ter ised as ori ented to con ven tionalend of pipe so lu tions and lack ing sustainability cri te ria. The size of thepro jects, pos si ble over spend ing, qual ity of the prep a ra tion, and ad verseef fects to en vi ron men tal and so cial ben e fits re main un solved to a largeex tent in many ISPA pro jects.

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Poland

IntroductionThis chap ter in cludes an over view of na tional and EU pri or i ties re -

gard ing uti li sa tion of the pre-accession funds in Po land. It also con tainsa gen eral de scrip tion of the ISPA pro jects that have been ap proved bythe Eu ro pean Com mis sion un til Jan u ary 2002. Since, the last up date of“Bil lions for Sustainability?” most of the pri or i ties de fined for trans portand en vi ron men tal sec tors have re mained un changed. The ex cep tionwas an up date of the “Trans port Strat egy (ISPA Fund)” that added newpro jects to the list of in vest ments pro posed by Pol ish gov ern ment.There fore, as sess ments in cluded in this pa per, to some ex tent, over lapwith the is sues de scribed in the pre vi ous re port. It es pe cially re lates tothe en vi ron men tal sec tor. The SAPARD programme has been de layedfor over two years, Po land has not re ceived any sup port from this fundyet. There fore, this pa per de scribes solely a pro cess of ac cred i ta tion ofSAPARD pay ment agency, which is re quired to start this programme.

ISPA Environment in PolandOb jec tives set up in the EC Reg u la tion No 1267/1999 Es tab lishing

ISPA The Coun cil Reg u la tion (EC) No 1267/1999 of 21 June 1999 es -tab lish ing an In stru ment for Struc tural Pol icies for Pre-accession stip u -lates that the mea sures sup ported un der ISPA programme shall be ofsuf fi cient scale to have a sig nif i cant im pact in the field of en vi ron men talpro tec tion, and the to tal cost of each mea sure shall in prin ci ple not beless than EUR five mil lion.

In the spe cific case of Po land, in or der to achieve vis i ble im prove -ments in the state of en vi ron ment, it is nec es sary to al lo cate sig nif i cantre sources in a large-scale in fra struc ture pro jects. These pro jects in clude: wa ter treat ment fa cil i ties, waste col lec tion programmes, and air qual ityim prove ment.

Con trary to some other can di date coun tries, be cause sup ply of thelarge scale pro jects ex ists, the gen eral rule that min i mum cost of an

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ISPA pro ject shall not be less than EUR five mil lion seems to be an ad e -quate ap proach for solv ing ur gent, large-scale en vi ron men tal prob lemsin Po land.

Pri or ities Set up by Pol ish Gov ern mentAc cord ing to the Strat egy for Using ISPA Fund for Im ple men ta tion

of the Na tional En vi ron men tal Pol icy (this doc u ment was up dated inMay 2001)1 the pri or ity mea sures pro posed for ISPA fund ing are in vest -ments in the fol low ing fields: (1) wa ter sup ply and wastewater treat -ment, (2) air qual ity im prove ment, and (3) solid waste man age ment. The gen eral sit u a tion in these sec tors, and the mea sures pro posed in theStrat egy are de scribed be low.

Wa ter Sup ply and Wastewater Sec torCon struc tion of mu nic i pal wastewater treat ment plants is a main

pri or ity in cluded in the Strat egy. The Na tional En vi ron men tal Pro tec -tion Strat egy for 2000 – 2006 iden ti fied pri or ity in vest ments in wa tersec tor for 19 Pol ish cit ies (Ta ble 3).

Sur face wa ter qual ity in Po land is among the worst in Eu rope. Ac -cord ing to the of fi cial data from mon i tor ing Pol ish rivers in 1997, therewere no rivers clas si fied as first class qual ity, 0,5 per cent was as signedthe sec ond class, 13,8 per cent was as signed third class, and 85,7 per centwas con sid ered be yond any stan dards. This sit u a tion is due to pol lu tionfrom un treated (in ad e quately treated) dis charges from ur ban ar eas, in -dus trial dis charges, and ag ri cul tural run off. Mu nic i pal ities dis chargefive times more un treated wastewater than in dus try, there fore ISPAfund ing di rected into this sec tor would have pos i tive im pact on wa terqual ity. It is stated in the Strat egy “(…) the needs in the field of wastewa ter treat ment are con sid er able. Two cit ies with pop u la tion equiv a lent(p.e.) of over 100 000 – Kalisz and Grudziadz – do not have anywastewater treat ment fa cil i ties. In Tarnow (p.e. 152 900) 92 per centwastewater is not treated, Szczecin (p.e. 418,800) – 87 per cent, andBydgoszcz (p.e. 386 600) – 79 per cent. War saw (p.e. 1 626 000) is cur -rently the sin gle larg est point source of un treated wastewater in Po land

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(in 1999 it dis charged into the en vi ron ment 87 hm3 of un treated mu nic -i pal wastewater). Con struc tion and op er a tion of wastewater treat mentplants in just six cit ies – War saw, Lodz, Krakow, Szczecin, Bydgoszczand Torun – would re duce the to tal dis charge of un treated mu nic i palwastewater in Po land about 50 per cent.”

Ac cord ing to the World Bank es ti mates of the costs of adopt ing EUdi rec tives re lat ing to sew age col lec tion sys tems and sew age treat mentfa cil i ties, es pe cially di rec tive 91/271/EEC on ur ban wastewater treat -ment, to cost for Po land would amount to EURO 11,5 bil lion. How -ever, the World Bank es ti mates vary sig nif i cantly form PHAREes ti mates, which show the cost of EURO 6,4 bil lion. Be cause of such ahigh costs of con struc tion and mod erni sa tion of sew age col lec tion sys -tems and wa ter treat ment fa cil i ties in mu nic i pal i ties, Pol ish gov ern mentasked for tran si tional pe ri ods in adopt ing pro vi sions of 91/271/EECdi rec tive (some of them are up to ten years). Sup port frompre-accession funds e.g. ISPA may play im por tant role in ap prox i ma tion pro cess in this field.

Air Qual ityAl though, dur ing last de cade emis sions of ma jor air pol lut ants have

been sig nif i cantly re duced, new dan ger ous trends have emerged i.e. in -creas ing trans port-related pol lu tion in Pol ish cit ies. The Strat egyemphasised that “im por tant ac tiv i ties aimed at lim it ing air pol lu tion at ur ban isedar eas will be those fo cus ing on de creas ing trans port-related pol lu tion.”

An other pri or ity, which was iden ti fied in the Strat egy, was elim i na -tion of low emis sion in big cit ies, which re sults from com bus tion pro -cesses in coal-based boil ers. This could be achieved through for ex.coal-to-gas con ver sion pro grams.

Solid WasteThe vol ume of mu nic i pal wastes gen er ated has grown in re cent

years. This re sults from mass in tro duc tion of dis pos able prod ucts andpack ages into Pol ish mar ket. Se lec tive waste col lec tion, re cy cling andeco nomic use are not de vel oped in Po land.

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The Strat egy iden ti fied fol low ing pri or i ties in this field: in vest mentsthat en sure com pre hen sive ap proach to the waste man age ment. Theirim ple men ta tion will lead to the dis posal of the low est pos si ble wasteamount and will pro vide waste sort ing, re use and re cy cling. Some of thepro ject ex am ples would in clude con struc tion of waste pro cess ing fa cil i -ties con sist ing of such el e ments as: land fill, in cin er a tion plant, com post -ing plant or sort ing plant. Pro ject could also be con nected withhaz ard ous waste man age ment in ac cor dance with plans and pro gramsof their re moval. Fur ther more, the Strat egy emphasises an ur gent needfor res ti tu tion and im prove ment of san i tary con di tions of both ex ist ingand closed land fills. Ac cord ing to the Strat egy the pri or ity will be givento the cit ies with the pop u la tion over 100 thou sand in hab it ants.

In cin er a tion of wastes is one of the mea sures that were pro posed inthe Strat egy in or der to solve prob lems re lated to solid wastes. Pro mo -tion of in cin er a tion may dis cour age mu nic i pal i ties from in tro duc tion ofthe programmes of se lec tive waste col lec tion (as the in cin er a tion plantsneed waste in put in or der to re pay in vested money). More over, the costs of in cin er a tion of mu nic i pal wastes in Po land are much higher thanother meth ods of waste treat ment.

Ta ble 1. Op er a tional cost of com mu nal waste man age ment fa cil i ties in Po land

Tech nol ogy Op er a tional cost (PLN/tonne)

Ex ploi ta tion pe riod(in years)

Land fill 30 - 125 20 – 30

An aer o bic di ges tion 14 – 16 10 – 50

Sorting fa cil ity 19 – 90 20 – 25

Com posting fa cil ity 30 – 150 20 – 25

In cin er a tion plant 450 - 650 15 - 20

Source: Waste Pre ven tion As so ci a tion “3R”, www.otzo.most.org.pl

There fore, the Strat egy should clearly em pha sis that sup port fromISPA should be pri mar ily di rected to the sys tems based on se lec tivewaste man age ment, in stead of the sys tems based on in cin er a tion. The

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pro posal for con struc tion of the in cin er a tion plants in Po land should be widely dis cussed with var i ous stake holders (in clud ing gen eral pub lic).

On the other hand, the san i tary con di tions in many of the land fillsare enor mously bad, hav ing neg a tive im pact on ground wa ters. TheISPA re sources al lo cated in res ti tu tion and im prove ment of these con -di tions may play an im por tant role.

Con clu sions The in vest ments, which are de scribed in the Strat egy, are in dis pens -

able in or der to ful fil strict EU stan dards re gard ing en vi ron men tal pro -tec tion. Po land will def i nitely ben e fit from im ple men ta tion of the EUen vi ron men tal pro tec tion di rec tives. How ever, it will re quire mo bi li sa -tion of large fi nan cial re sources. Pol ish mu nic i pal i ties, which will needto cover about 90 per cent of the costs of in vest ments in en vi ron men talpro tec tion, suf fer from lack of fi nan cial re sources for ed u ca tion, so cialcare etc. Lack of re sources in those fields is a bar rier in reali sa tion of thepro grams re lated to sew age treat ment, waste col lec tion etc. There fore,fi nan cial as sis tance pro vided from pre-accession funds, such as ISPAcan play cru cial role. De spite sig nif i cant sup port from pre-accessionfunds, Pol ish gov ern ment will need to face the prob lem of def i cit in fi -nanc ing nec es sary in vest ments in the field of en vi ron men tal pro tec tionin years 2000 un til 2006. Ac cord ing to the es ti mates car ried out for theMin is try for En vi ron ment the def i cit will reach EUR 3,6 bil lion.

It is worth not ing that pri or i ties in cluded in the Strat egy are sim i larto those that are set up by Pol ish mu nic i pal i ties. The sta tis ti cal re searchcar ried out among Pol ish mu nic i pal i ties showed that in vest ments in wa -ter man age ment and sew age treat ment fa cil i ties were con sid ered as themost ur gent (63 per cent). The ta ble 2 pres ents on a five-degree scale theur gency for solv ing prob lems in a spe cific field i.e. air pro tec tion, wa -ter/sew age, and solid waste. It shows the per cent ages of mu nic i pal i tiesthat in di cated cer tain level of ur gency for un der tak ing in vest ments inthose fields. The sit u a tion re gard ing air pro tec tion ap pears to be lessalarm ing. How ever, it should be taken into ac count that air pol lu tionprob lems do not oc cur, or oc cur to a lim ited ex tent, in ru ral mu nic i pal i -ties with low pop u la tion den sity. There fore, the data may be some what

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Poland

mis lead ing. In big cit ies this prob lem is par tic u larly se ri ous, and thesecit ies usu ally in di cated de gree “5” and “4”.

Ta ble 2. De gree of ur gency to un der take ac tiv i ties in the fol low ingfields

De gree of ur gency in un der tak ing ac tiv i ties tosolve en vi ron men tal prob lems

1(the low -

est)

2 3 4 5(the high -

est)Air pro tec tion 13% 21% 34% 20% 12% 100%Wa ter and sew -

age5% 4% 10% 18% 63% 100%

Solid waste 4% 5% 23% 24% 43% 100%

Source: The In sti tute for En vi ron men tal Tax Re form

In this con text it is im por tant to re mem ber that the re search men -tioned above cov ered all-size mu nic i pal i ties, while mainly big mu nic i -pal i ties will ben e fit from ISPA re sources.

ISPA EnvironmentAc cord ing to the max i mum sce nario pre sented in the Strat egy Po -

land may re ceive up to EUR 1,236 bil lion in years 2000 – 2006 for en vi -ron men tal pro jects. Un til now, the EC has granted EUR 485,6 mil lionfor this sec tor, which is about 40 per cent of the amount pro vided for inthe max i mum sce nario. Four teen pro jects re late to wa ter man age ment(sew age treat ment fa cil i ties or wa ter pipe lines etc.), four of the pro jectsto waste man age ment, and none of them to air qual ity im prove ment. Alack of pro jects re lat ing to air qual ity is due to the dif fi cul ties in find ingap pro pri ate size pro jects (which value ex ceeds EUR five mil lion).

First 19 cit ies listed in Ta ble 3, are the cit ies where in vest ments insew age treat ment fa cil i ties are con sid ered the most ur gent ones (ac cord -ing to the Na tional En vi ron men tal Pro tec tion Strat egy 2000 – 2006).

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Eleven of the cit ies listed in the Na tional En vi ron men tal Pro tec tionStrat egy were se lected for ISPA fi nanc ing.

Ta ble 3. The cit ies which were con sid ered as top pri or ity in theNa tional En vi ron men tal Pro tec tion Strat egy (1 – 19) and other cit ieswhich re ceived sup port from ISPA (20 –24)

City Pop u -la tionequiv -a lent

Per cent -age of

pop u la tion ser viced

by sew agetreat ment

fa cil ity

Has thecity re -

ceived fi -nan cialsup port

from ISPA

Com ment

Warszawa 1 626 000 46 YES sew age treat -ment

Lodz 860 000 91 YES sew age treat -ment

Krakow 854 000 68 YES sew age treat -ment

Poznan 806 000 80 YES sew age treat -ment/wa ter

sup plyWroclaw 792 000 89 YES sew age treat -

ment/wa tersup ply

Gdansk 555 000 100

Szczecin 419 000 13 YES wa ter sup ply

Bydgoszcz 387 000 21 YES sew age treat -ment/wa ter

sup plyKatowice 366 600 66 YES sew age treat -

mentGliwice 283 000 44 YES sew age treat -

mentSosnowiec 246 000 68 pro posal sub -

mit ted forISPA 2001

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Poland

City Pop u -la tionequiv -a lent

Per cent -age of

pop u la tion ser viced

by sew agetreat ment

fa cil ity

Has thecity re -

ceived fi -nan cialsup port

from ISPA

Com ment

Torun 209 000 No data YES sew age treat -ment/wa ter

sup ply Opole 189 000 97 pro posal sub -

mit ted forISPA 2001

RudaSlaska

165 000 66 pro posal sub -mit ted forISPA 2001

Kalisz 163 000 No data

JastrzebieZ.

149 000 93

Walbrzych 139 000 96 pro posal sub -mit ted forISPA 2001

Grudziadz 129 000 No data pro posal sub -mit ted forISPA 2001

Rybnik 107 00 51 YES sew age treat -ment

Pila 76 800 YES wa ter sup ply

Olsztyn 173 000 YES sew age treat -ment

Przemysl YES sew age treat -ment

Suwalki YES sew age treat -ment/wa ter

sup plyBialystok 285 030 YES sew age treat -

ment/wa tersup ply

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Up to day four pro jects re lat ing to waste man age ment have re ceivedfi nan cial sup port from ISPA (Krakow, Wroclaw, as so ci a tion of mu nic i -pal i ties “Dol ina Redy i Chylonki”, Lodz), fi nan cial mem o ran dums forthese pro jects have been al ready signed.

Table 4. Examples of the projects in the field of solid waste

Pro ject 1

Pro ject ti tle: Solid waste man age ment in Krakow – phase I

Fi nan cial sup port from ISPA: amounts to EURO 14 mil lion which is 62% ofthe to tal amount de voted for the pro ject from pub lic sources.

De scrip tion: Krakow is one of the big gest cit ies in Po land (800 000 in hab it ants).Cur rently, all solid wastes (234 000 tons) are sent to land fill in Barycz. This land fillwill be closed in near fu ture as the ca pac ity of this land fill is be ing ex hausted. Thepro ject fi nanced from ISPA in cludes: ex ten sion of the land fill (with the ca pac ity of two mil lion cu bic me ters), con struc tion of com post ing plant (6 000 tonne/year),de vel op ment of se lec tive waste col lec tion (pa per, glass, metal and plas tic), andcon struc tion of waste sort ing fa cil ity. The ISPA grant will also cover the costs ofprep a ra tion of the fea si bil ity study for con struc tion of the in cin er a tion plant.

Pro ject 2

Pro ject ti tle: Com mu nal waste man age ment in Wroclaw – phase I

Fi nan cial sup port from ISPA: over EURO 13 mil lion, which is 66 per cent of the to tal amount al lo cated for the pro ject from do mes tic sources.

De scrip tion: Wroclaw is a city with the pop u la tion of 640 000 in hab it ants. Theca pac ity of the cur rently used land fill in Maslice is ex hausted. More over, only partof the land fill in Maslice is iso lated and leak ing wa ter has neg a tive in flu ence onground wa ters (and Odra river). Ac cord ing to Gen eral In spec tor ate for En vi ron -men tal Pro tec tion the land fill in Maslice is among tree most dan ger ous land fills inPo land. The pro ject fi nanced from ISPA in cludes: clo sure and res ti tu tion of theland fill in Maslice, and tech ni cal as sis tance in prep a ra tion of the phase II (con -struc tion of a new land fill).

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Source: Pro ject 1. Fi nan cial mem o ran dum, Krakow: Mem o ran dum Finansowe uzgodnionepomiedzy Komisja Europejska a Rzeczpospolita Polska odnoœnie przyznania œrodkówpomocowych w ramach ISPA na przedsiewziecie: gospodarka odpadami stalymi w Krakowie,etap IPro ject 2. Fi nan cial Mem o ran dum, Wroclaw: Mem o ran dum Finansowe uzgodnionepomiedzy Komisja Europejska a Rzeczpospolita Polska odnoœnie przyznania œrodkówpomocowych w ramach ISPA na przedsiewziecie: gospodarka odpadami komunalnymi weWroclawiu, etap I

ISPA TransportThe tar get of the ISPA trans port sec tor is to build the fu ture

trans-European trans port net works (De ci sion 1692/96 of the Eu ro -pean Par lia ment and of the Coun cil of 23 July 1996), as de fined in theTINA Re port, which will cover the ben e fi ciary coun tries of Cen tral Eu -rope1.

In or der to pro mote sus tain able de vel op ment of trans port sec tor inPo land, it is in dis pens able to al lo cate fi nan cial re sources not solely in de -vel op ment of trans-European Net works, but also in mea sures that sup -port the most ef fi cient and en vi ron men tally sound modes oftrans por ta tion (pub lic trans por ta tion in cit ies, do mes tic rail con nec -tions). These mea sures should be el i gi ble for ISPA fi nanc ing. More over, in vest ments in pub lic trans por ta tion in the cit ies would gen er ate ben e -fits in both trans port and en vi ron ment sec tors (for ex. air pro tec tion).

Trans port Strat egy Re cently Pol ish gov ern ment an nounced new programme: “In fra -

struc ture – a key for de vel op ment”, in which it ex pressed its sup port forcon struc tion of the new high ways in Po land. At the same time the dif fi -cult sit u a tion of Pol ish rail re mains un solved. As the re cent ar ti cle in one of the big gest Pol ish daily’s points out: “Fo cus on in ter na tional as pectsof trans por ta tion takes place at the cost of do mes tic trans por ta tion is -sues. An ex am ple is a strong fo cus on de vel op ment of trans-Europeantrans port net works, mainly A2 and A4 high ways in the trans por ta tion

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cor ri dors II and III, east west. Enor mous fi nan cial re sources have beenal lo cated in these ac tiv i ties. This re sulted in ne glect ing other ur gentneeds e.g. main tain ing, mod ern is ing and ex tend ing voivodship andpowiat roads. Fol low ing this path in lon ger term may re sult in eco nomic re per cus sions – traf fic con ges tion, small mo bil ity of so ci ety, dis tort ingcom pet i tive ness con di tions, un equal de vel op ment of re gions and wast -ing of re sources from the EU struc tural funds.”8

The sit u a tion of rail ways is even worse. Dur ing last years many kilo -metres of the rail roads have been closed, and many of the con nec tionshave been can cel led. For ex am ple, in 2000 rail traf fic was sus pended in 3 300 km of rail lines. The gen eral rule in cluded in The Na tional Trans -por ta tion Strat egy (ISPA Fund), which stip u lates sus tain able de vel op -ment of trans port sec tor in Po land, is noth ing but an empty phrase thatis not re flected in re al ity.

Over view of the ISPA Pro jects in Trans port Sec tor The ta ble be low pres ents the pro jects for which fi nan cial mem o ran -

dums were signed be tween Eu ro pean Com mis sion and Pol ish gov ern -ment. Ma jor part of the pro jects was as signed to the road sub-sector.Small num ber of the pro jects in rail sub-sector ap pears to be strange,con sid er ing cur rent enor mous fi nan cial needs in this field. On the otherhand pro mot ing high way and road con struc tion pro jects re flectslong-term fo cus on road trans por ta tion of Pol ish gov ern ment.

Table 5. Projects for which financial memorandums between the ECand Polish government have been signed (as of January 2002).

High way/roadconstruction

Roadmodernization

Railway Other(tech ni -cal as -

sis tance)

km EUR(mil lion)

km EUR(mil lion)

km EUR(mil lion)

EUR(mil lion)

Kleszow-Sosnica A4

19 82,2

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Poland

High way/roadconstruction

Roadmodernization

Railway Other(tech ni -cal as -

sis tance)

km EUR(mil lion)

km EUR(mil lion)

km EUR(mil lion)

EUR(mil lion)

BielskoBiala-Cieszyn

28,2 103,6

Krzywa-Wroclaw

91,6 189,5

Sochaczew-Grojec

no data 24,5

Gdansk-Jazowz

no data 62,1

Krakow-Tarnow

no data 46,6

MinskMaz.-Siedlce

62 93,4

Rzepin -stateborder

16 17,7

Tech ni calAssisstance

0,4

Tech ni calAssisstance

0,7

Warszawa-Dzialowo

5,9

To tal 138,8 375,3 133,2 111,1 7

Source: Com mit tee for Eu ro pean In te gra tion

Orig i nal as sump tion was that the al lo ca tion be tween road and railsub-sector should be 50/50. Em pha sis on the rail sub-sector un derISPA programme is in ac cor dance with the EC pol icy of en cour ag ingrail use and de vel op ment as a method of both re duc ing road con ges tionand the air pol lu tion caused by road trans port9.

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How ever, look ing at the al lo ca tion of ISPA recourses for trans portsec tor in Po land in year 2000 and 2001 the sit u a tion is very dif fer entfrom orig i nal as sump tion.

An nual Re port of the In stru ment for Struc tural Pol icies forPre-accession10 pres ents that Po land re ceived EUR 173 085 066 in as sis -tance from ISPA as signed to trans port pro jects. EUR 100 802 601 (58,2per cent) of this amount was al lo cated to road sub-sector (Cor ri dor III ),and EUR 72 282 465 was al lo cated in rail sub-sector. Ac cord ing to theRe port there were four road-related, and two rail-related pro jects.

How ever, look ing at the to tal amount ded i cated for these pro jects,which was spec i fied in fi nan cial mem o ran dums signed in 2000, the per -cent age of re sources al lo cated in rail pro jects was even smaller. EUR155 519 124 (62 per cent) for road pro jects, and EUR 95 218 57911.

Fig ure 1 Al lo ca tion of ISPA recourses from bud get for 2000Fig ure 2 To tal amount of money pro vided for in Fi nan cial Mem o -

ran dums signed in 2000More over, when look ing at the to tal amount of money that were as -

signed to both sub-sectors un til the end of 2001. The al lo ca tion in rail -way sub-sector was enor mously smaller (see Ta ble 5 and Fig ure 3).

Fig ure 3 Amount pro vided for in fi nan cial mem o ran dums signed bythe EC and Pol ish side in 2000 and 2001

Re cent up date of the Trans port Strat egy (ISPA Fund) added threenew pro jects to the list of in vest ment pro posed to be co-financed fromISPA. These pro jects are: (i) im prove ment of rail in fra struc ture and re -moval of “bot tle necks”, mod erni sa tion of rail roads in or der to shortentime of rail travel, (ii) ac cess to A4 high way – west ern sec tion of theGliwice ring-road”, (iii) a group of tech ni cal as sis tance pro jects – prep a -ra tion of the road and rail ac cess to pan-European Trans port Cor ri dorsin Poznan, Lodz, Warszawa, Wroclaw, Katowice, Krakow andGdansk”.

It should be noted that sev eral other pro jects in rail sub-sector wereap proved by ISPA Steering Com mit tee (the EC singed fi nan cial mem o -ran dums for them), but Pol ish side has not signed these mem o ran dumsyet. These are mainly pro jects in rail sub-sector, there fore their ac cep -

105

Poland

tance by Pol ish gov ern ment would im prove bal ance be tween bothsub-sectors. These pro jects are:

• im prove ment of rail in fra struc ture and re moval of “bot tle necks”,mod erni sa tion of rail roads in or der to shorten time of rail travel(mem o ran dum was singed by the EC on No vem ber 28, 2001);

• mod erni sa tion of E-20 rail road, (mem o ran dum was signed bythe EC on No vem ber 28, 2001); and

• mod erni sa tion of E-30 rail road, Legnica – Wegliniec –Zgorzelec, (mem o ran dum signed by the EC on De cem ber 17,2001).

Support for HighwaysThe ISPA re sources were al lo cated in two pro jects re lated to the

con struc tion of A4 motor way. The first pro ject is con struc tion ofKleszow – Sosnica sec tion (19 km), and the sec ond is con struc tion of

the Krzywa – Wroclaw sec tion (91.6 km). The to tal con tri bu tion fromISPA for these pro jects amounts to EUR 271 736 000, which con sti -tutes over 43 per cent of the amount of money granted from ISPA foren tire trans por ta tion sec tor. It is worth not ing that A4 motor way isco-financed with the re sources from Eu ro pean In vest ment Bank. Thecon tro ver sies aris ing around A4 pro ject were de scribed in theBankwatch Net work’s is sue pa per “The Lost High way – EIB In volve -

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020 000 00040 000 00060 000 00080 000 000

100 000 000120 000 000

road sub-sector rail sub-sector

ment in Con struc tion of A4”12. It should be noted that en vi ron men tal -ist have pre sented many con flict ing ar eas and prob lems re lated to A4

motor way. The ar gu ments pre sented in that pub li ca tion con cerned interalia ar eas of na ture pro tec tion en dan gered by the pro ject, in suf fi cientnum ber of passes for an i mals, il le gal cut ting of trees, vi o la tion of lawdur ing con struc tion pro cess, lack of pub lic con sul ta tion on this sub ject.

SAPARDSince pub lish ing the last re port “Sus tain able The ory – Un sus tain -

able Prac tice?” lit tle prog ress has been made in the field of SAPARDim ple men ta tion. Ex tremely com pli cated or gani sa tional sys tem re quiredby the EC, turned out to be dif fi cult to im ple ment in Po land. Ac cord ing

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Poland

0

100000000200000000300000000400000000500000000600000000

road sub-sector rail sub-sector

0

50 000 000

100 000 000

150 000 000

200 000 000

road sub-sector rail sub-sector

to the Min is try of Ag ri cul ture dif fi cul ties in de vel op ment of SAPARDim ple men ta tion pro ce dures were ag gra vated by the fact that SAPARD isco-financed from the Guar an tee Sec tion of Guar an tee and Guid anceFund. Its im ple men ta tion shall be in line with pro vi sions of Fund’sGuar an tee Sec tion. It is worth not ing at the same time that the struc turalprogrammes (on which SAPARD is based), were based on fi nanc ingfrom an other Fund sec tion, namely Guid ance Sec tion. There fore the re -quire ments of the Eu ro pean Com mis sion which have to be ful filled byac cred ited pay ment agen cies un der Guar an tee Sec tion are more de -mand ing than those that need to be met by in sti tu tions op er at ing un derGuid ance Sec tion pro vi sions. The EC has not com pleted the ac cred i ta -tion pro cess of the Agency for Re struc turing and Mod erni sa tion of Ag ri -cul ture, which was es tab lish as pay ment and im ple ment ing agency forPo land. The state ac cred i ta tion pro cess, which was car ried out by ArturAndersen, was com pleted in Sep tem ber 2001. On 20 Sep tem ber theAgency re ceived the state act of ac cred i ta tion, and sup plied it to theCom mis sion to gether with re port from ex ter nal au di tor and other doc u -men ta tion.

National Development Plan In Jan u ary 2002 Com mit tee for Eu ro pean In te gra tion ap proved pre -

lim i nary Na tional De vel op ment Plan 2002 - 2003. This Plan ex pands and up dates the doc u ment “Pre lim i nary Na tional De vel op ment Plan 2000 –2002” (adopted on 22 De cem ber 1999). The fi nal ver sion of the Na tional De vel op ment Plan is due to be final ised by the end 2002. Cur rently sev -eral Pol ish NGO’s ne go ti ate with the re spon si ble min is tries on the pos si -bil ity of mak ing com ments to this plan. Pre lim i narily, rep re sen ta tives ofPol ish gov ern ment agreed to in volve NGO in this pro cess.

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Slovak Republic

Ac cord ing to the “Ac ces sion Part ner ship” doc u ment, the sta bil ityof in sti tu tions guar an tee ing de moc racy and the rule of law are listed asthe first con di tions for the ac ces sion of any can di date coun try. In or derto en sure im ple men ta tion of these con di tions, the EU has pro videdSlovakia hun dreds of mil lions of Euros in non-repayable as sis tance. The of fi cial aims of gov ern ment agen cies, how ever, are too of ten in sharpcon flict with real po lit i cal ex pe ri ence and the fi nan cial in stru ments re -served for their im ple men ta tion, in this in stance a por tion of funds forpre-accession as sis tance may even work against the pre cise thing theyin tended to pro mote. Money as signed for the de vel op ment of de moc -racy can thus be used to con struct in sti tu tions which are es sen tially un -dem o cratic and non-transparent, di rect ing fur ther fi nances not on theba sis of over all so cial pri or i ties, but on the ba sis of the po lit i cal in cli na -tions of the lim ited group of peo ple in power.

The grow ing sus pi cion about the sys tem atic mis use of EU as sis -tance for Slovakia ex ploded into an in ter na tional scan dal at the end ofMarch 2001 (see first sig nals in the pre vi ous brief ing). Up to that point,non-governmental or gani sa tions had un suc cess fully at tempted to at -tract the at ten tion of rep re sen ta tives of the Slo vak Gov ern ment andBrussels of fi cials to the non-transparent sys tem of man age ment of EUpre-accession as sis tance, which was cre at ing fer tile ground for abuse.The au thor i ties took al most no no tice of their at tempts. Their at ten tionwas only drawn by the pub li ca tion of im por tant doc u ments from thewife of the Di rec tor of the De part ment of For eign As sis tance of theSlo vak Re pub lic Gov ern ment Of fice, Roland Toth, a key fig ure in thesys tem of man age ment of the EU funds on the Slo vak side, who con -firmed many pre vi ous in di ca tions of abuses and cor rup tion. A del e ga -tion of the Com mit tee on Bud get ary Con trol of Eu ro pean Par lia mentled by Her bert Bosch, which came to Slovakia in June 2001 to mon i torthe im ple men ta tion of EU pro grams and con trol sys tems stated that:“Early warn ings had not been taken se ri ously, in ves ti ga tions started too late and ini -tially the im pres sion was given that there was a lack of will to in ves ti gate the case indepth.”13

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Slovak Republic

There is no doubt that with out a fa vour able en vi ron ment inBratislava and Brussels, which lacked ef fec tive con trol mech a nisms foras sert ing open ness and for pre vent ing cor rup tion, it would not havebeen pos si ble to con struct such a closed and du ra ble sys tem for ma nip -u lat ing EU pre-accession as sis tance as emerged in Slovakia. SinceMarch 2001, of fi cial au dits, me dia and NGOs re vealed a num ber ofshock ing find ings which gen er ated pres sure for changes on both EUand Slo vak sides of (mostly PHARE) aid man age ment. Un for tu nately,de spite the fact that Brussels and Bratislava an nounced po lit i cal clo sureof the “Toth case,” the adopted mea sures are far from be ing sat is fac tory and should be con sid ered only as a first step to wards heal ing the wholesys tem.

PHARE14

Slovakia has been uti lis ing aid from PHARE funds since the split ofthe Czech and Slo vak Fed eral Re pub lic in 1993. By the end of 2001, ato tal of EUR 440,3 mil lion had been pro vided to Slovakia. In 2000, af ter the sign ing of Agenda 2000, two pri or ity ar eas were spec i fied for thePHARE Programme: build ing in sti tu tions ca pa ble of guar an tee ing thesta bil ity of the coun try af ter ac ces sion (30 per cent) and in vest ment intothe in fra struc ture nec es sary for en sur ing con for mity with EU stan dards(70 per cent).

Ac cord ing to Friends of the Earth Slovakia, a num ber of cases con -firm the fact that “pre-accession as sis tance is ap proached in Slovakia mostly as anop por tu nity to ob tain sub stan tial fund ing to set tle cur rent prob lems in places wherethe po lit i cal elite co op er ate with the man ag ers of aid programmes, while com pletely ig -nor ing the main po lit i cal pur pose of such programmes - to en hance the abil ity of thecoun try to ef fec tively ad min is ter pub lic funds in a dem o cratic way.”15 Among themost no ta ble de fi cien cies al low ing abuse and ma nip u la tion of de ci -sion-making re gard ing PHARE programmes, Friends of the EarthSlovakia listed the fol low ing:

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CEPA

Alarming State of Pro fes sional Ca pa bil itiesOne of the fac tors that blocks re forms and elim i nates the di rect re -

spon si bil ity of of fi cials is the sys tem of re cy cling bu reau crats within thepub lic ad min is tra tion. This is not the sole do main of the EC, but is alsoprac tised to a great ex tent in Slovakia. Those who failed to ful fil theirdu ties or were dis missed from their posts due to ir reg u lar i ties or evenabuses, were of ten im me di ately em ployed at an other agency, par tic i pat -ing in mak ing de ci sions con cern ing a sub stan tially of larger amount ofEU funds than be fore. In Slovakia, there are no avail able mech a nisms or stan dards for as sess ing the qual ity of work of the staff in volved inpre-accession as sis tance. A long-term and con sis tent strat egy for build -ing pro fes sional ca pac ity (e.g. through train ing) is miss ing as well.

In ad di tion, there is the risk that know-how may be stripped fromthe in sti tu tions ad min is ter ing the EU aid by of fi cials who were forced to leave due to the scan dal men tioned above or those who will most likelyleave due to grad u ally de creas ing sal a ries. It is pos si ble that these peo ple, trained from the EU funds, used their pub lic ser vice to build pri vate en -ti ties which will pro vide ser vices for pub lic agen cies in the fu ture, onceagain us ing EU funds.

Im proper In sti tu tional Frame workMis man age ment of pre-accession aid was, how ever, more the re sult

of an in sti tu tion al ised sys tem than merely the re sult of in ad e quate per -son nel. In ves ti ga tions of the Slo vak Su preme Au dit Of fice, un pub lished EC re ports and NGO anal y sis re peat edly sig nalled a poor ad min is tra -tive struc ture which was cha otic in re gard to com pe ten cies, en abling thein ter con nec tion of com pe ten cies that were mu tu ally in com pat i ble orwhich al lowed over lap ping au thor i ties.

For ex am ple, the Cen tral Fi nance and Con tracting Unit, a key in sti -tu tion for the fi nan cial man age ment of PHARE pro jects was es tab -lished in 1998 to strengthen the in sti tu tional ca pac ity of the Slo vakGov ern ment in or der to ef fec tively im ple ment the tar gets of PHARE.The EU pro vided EUR 1,1 mil lion for this pur pose, and al most 100 per -cent of the Cen tral Fi nance and Con tracting Unit bud get was cov eredby PHARE funds. Sal aries of the Unit ex perts reached up to EUR 1 900

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monthly, which was well above the Slo vak av er age and higher than thegross monthly in come of a mem ber of the gov ern ment. It was ex pectedthat the Cen tral Fi nance and Con tracting Unit would pre pare the con di -tions for the as sump tion of its tasks by the rel e vant gov ern men tal in sti -tu tions once EU re sources for this unit would not be avail able and thecom pe ten cies of the Unit would be trans ferred to other state in sti tu -tions. The Cen tral Fi nance and Con structing Unit, how ever, did not al -lo cate ad e quate funds to train em ploy ees of the other agen cies and itfailed to meet this stra te gic goal. It turned into an iso lated andnon-transparent in sti tu tion. This is a se ri ous prob lem be cause PHAREcon tri bu tions to the Unit over three years (start ing in 2001), fell to 60per cent, 30 per cent, and 0 per cent. Thus, af ter Slovakia’s ac ces sion tothe EU, when the com pe ten cies of the Unit should be in te grated intothe ex ist ing gov ern ment struc tures, Slovakia will not have the per son nel or in sti tu tions ready to ad min is ter struc tural funds. It is then hard to ex -pect an in crease in the sys tem’s ef fi ciency. More over, the Cen tral Fi -nance and Con struc tion Unit (re spon si ble for im ple men ta tion16) wasdi rectly sub or di nate to the De part ment of For eign As sis tance (re spon si -ble for pro gram ming17), which, to gether with com pe ten cies be ing ex -ceeded and a lack of in for ma tion for re gions and gov ern mentde part ments, cre ated con di tions en abling the ma nip u la tion of PHAREfi nances to a sig nif i cant ex tent.18 On the other hand, the in ac cu rate de -lim i ta tion of the pow ers and du ties of key of fi cials on the Slo vak side re -sulted in a high con cen tra tion of com pe ten cies un der R. Toth, theEx ec u tive Na tional Aid Co or di na tor and the Di rec tor of the De part -ment of For eign As sis tance.

Weak Mon i toring and no Su per vi sion The sys tem of man age ment of EU as sis tance in Slovakia lacked

qual ity mon i tor ing and was lim ited to quan ti ta tive eval u a tion of pro -jects. The sig nif i cantly larger struc tural funds which will be avail able af -ter Slovakia’s ac ces sion to the EU, how ever, re quire a sys tem which isin com pa ra bly more so phis ti cated, with mon i tor ing tar geted at qual itycon trol. In stead of build ing a du ra ble mon i tor ing sys tem com pat i blewith the coun try’s fu ture needs from the very be gin ning, the EC in -vested a lot of money into a sys tem which will soon be un us able.

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Lack of mon i tor ing and su per vi sion by the EC Del e ga tion inBratislava and by the Slo vak au thor i ties de ter mined the cul ture of de ci -sion-making to a sig nif i cant ex tent; it en sured crit i cal con trol over thePHARE funds in Slovakia to a lim ited group of peo ple. As a re sult, in -stead of be ing a steady wall against abuses of for eign aid, the sys tem ofman age ment of PHARE funds even en cour aged their ma nip u la tion.

For ex am ple, the EUR 500 000 sew age treat ment fa cil ity at Zohorwas al ready de bat able at the pro ject level. This fa cil ity was not com -pleted ac cord ing to the terms of ref er ence. Its ac tual ca pac ity af ter com -ple tion in Sep tem ber 1999 reached only one-quarter of its pro jectedca pac ity, de spite the fact that it was sup posed to serve a vil lage with lessthan 4 000 in hab it ants. Two years af ter the fa cil ity was put into op er a -tion, about 60 per cent of its ca pac ity is now be ing uti lised, al though, ac -cord ing to lo cal res i dents, it is un likely that all house holds will becon nected to it due to a lack of funds for the con struc tion of a mu nic i pal sew age sys tem. Ad di tionally, a new hous ing es tate is planned for the vil -lage in the long term; in which case, the fa cil ity’s ca pac ity will be in suf fi -cient. The fa cil ity it self is as ton ish ing in its il log i cal struc ture. First,un nec es sar ily ex pen sive build ing ma te ri als were used for the fa cil ity’scon struc tion, al though sig nif i cantly cheaper al ter na tives were avail able.Sec ondly, these ex pen sive ma te ri als are com pletely in op er a tive, andhave even been fit ted in a det ri men tal man ner (for ex am ple, hardly anyof the spe cial dou ble-glazed win dows in the op er a tional sec tion can beopened, thus re tain ing a per ma nently high level of hu mid ity in the build -ing, which leads to the rapid de struc tion of wooden pan el ling). The Del -e ga tion of the EC reg is tered this pro ject as un sat is fac tory.19

Ac cord ing to the Chair man of the Slo vak Su preme Au dit Of fice,Jozef Stahl, his in sti tu tion did not have the au thor ity un til Feb ru ary 2001 to over see the uti li sa tion of for eign funds. As soon as the Su preme Au -dit Of fice was given this au thor ity, it tried to use it in prac tice, only tomeet with re sis tance from the Gov ern ment Of fice. Ac cord ing to Stahl,at the be gin ning of 2000, the Gov ern ment Of fice know ingly mis in -formed the EC by stat ing that no in de pend ent au dit of fice ex isted inSlovakia, al though the Au dit Of fice was es tab lished in 1993. Stahl wasalso sur prised that the EC showed no in ter est in know ing who su per -

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vised the ef fi ciency of the uti li sa tion of its funds in Slovakia, or how thiswas car ried out.20

Ab sence of Clear RulesThe ab sence of un am big u ous, bind ing and en force able rules reg u -

lat ing both the prep a ra tion for ba sic stra te gic doc u ments re quested bythe EC for us ing pre-accession as sis tance and the PHARE pro gram -ming and im ple men ta tion was closely linked to is sues such as du ties andre spon si bil i ties of of fi cials in these pro cesses, for which no le gal frame -work was es tab lished. There fore, the whole pro ject cy cle pro vided thegrounds for the se lec tive di rect ing of funds by those who con trolled thesys tem. The ab sence of clear rules at the De part ment of For eign As sis -tance, headed by Roland Toth, was also af firmed by an in ter nal au dit atthe Gov ern ment Of fice as early as sum mer 2000.21 The se ri ous find ingsof this au dit were kept con fi den tial and the Slo vak Gov ern ment did notin form the EC about them un til June 2001.

The prep a ra tion of the Na tional Re gional De vel op ment Plan andsec toral and re gional op er a tional plans was par a lysed by theever-changing rules and the in com pe tence of the of fi cial ap pa ra tus, sup -plied with cha otic and of ten con tra dic tory in struc tions from the EC.This was re flected in the re sult ing qual ity of the doc u ments, which weresup posed to be come a kind of fil ter for the fu ture se lec tion of the pro -jects and nat u rally, in de lays in their com ple tion.

One of the ma jor rea sons for chaos in PHARE pro gram ming wasthe se lec tive trans fer of in for ma tion be tween Bratislava and Brusselsand the pro vi sion of in com plete or late in for ma tion about de ci -sion-making pro ce dures, dead lines and grant con di tions for po ten tialben e fi cia ries and pub lic.22 This opened up the pos si bil ity for few keySlo vak and EC of fi cials to ar bi trarily de cide as to which pro jects wouldbe sub mit ted for ap proval, and which would not. The pro jects were al -leg edly of ten pre pared by a small cir cle of ap pli cants who were well in -formed in ad vance, and who were the only peo ple able to meet thedead lines and the min i mum de mands on the qual ity of pro jects.

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Chaos, as an or gan ised pro cess in PHARE pro gram ming, waspointed out by 16 NGOs in their let ter to Prime Min is ter MikulasDzurinda as early as Au gust 1999. NGOs stated, “the tur bid wa ters of therapid pro cess in crease the risk of nep o tism and the cor rupt mis use of EU as sis -tance.”23 Me dia also pub lished in for ma tion about fre quent ma nip u la tion of the ten -der pro cess, cor rup tion be hind the se lec tion of PHARE funded ex perts and con sult -ing com pa nies, and con flict ing in ter ests of of fi cials in volved in both pro gram ming andim ple men ta tion. Maria Kadlecikova, Vice Pre mier for Eu ro pean In te gra tion, whore placed Pavol Hamzik af ter his dis missal from this post in May 2001, stated thatthe scan dal around use of EU funds in Slovakia in volved “nep o tism, con flicts of in -ter ests, in flu enc ing and es pe cially non-transparency.”24 How ever, it was im pos si ble toprove 90 per cent of these al le ga tions due to miss ing or even de stroyed doc u men ta tion,she added.

Slo vak leg is la tion did not pro vide ef fec tive en force ment tools topre vent the mis use of au thor ity, con flict of in ter ests (with the ex cep tionof high-level state of fi cials) and the ma nip u la tion of pub lic funds. A part of the prob lem was un doubt edly the ab sence of a civil ser vice act inSlovakia (it was passed by Par lia ment in July 2001 and will en ter intoforce in April 2002) and ef fec tive reg u la tion of the fi nan cial con trol ofthe pub lic in sti tu tions, in clud ing pre-accession funds. For ex am ple,some state em ploy ees un der take to re frain from busi ness ac tiv i ties, forwhich they re ceive a 25 per cent sup ple ment to their wages; how ever, su -per vi sion of this un der tak ing was al most non-existent. It is ex pectedthat for the large ma jor ity of the prob lems con nected to the mis man age -ment of the PHARE funds up to March 2001 it will not be pos si ble toat trib ute crim i nal re spon si bil ity to spe cific peo ple.

Starting Over The “Toth case” was sparked on March 12, 2001 by a let ter with

over 70 sup ple men tal pages from Toth’s wife to Prime Min is terDzurinda, in which she called at ten tion to the wide spread, co or di natedmis ap pro pri a tion of funds from the PHARE programme and the mis -use of au thor ity by her hus band and his team. A few days later, Toth was dis missed from his func tion as Di rec tor of the De part ment of For eignAs sis tance of the Slo vak Re pub lic Gov ern ment Of fice and Ex ec u tive

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Na tional Aid Co or di na tor. This pro voked a mass re ac tion in the me diaand a tem po rary freeze of the cur rent ten ders and con tracts for Slovakiaby the EC. Sub se quently, Friends of the Earth-Slovakia, the Slo vakPros e cu tor-General, the po lice, the Eu ro pean Anti-Fraud Of fice(OLAF) and, later, the Slo vak Su preme Au dit Of fice (SAO) ini ti atedsep a rate in ves ti ga tions.

Due to pow er ful po lit i cal and pub lic pres sure, Pavol Hamzik wasdis missed from the post of Dep uty Prime Min is ter for Eu ro pean In te -gra tion. In June, a mis sion from the Bud get ary Con trol Com mit tee ofthe Eu ro pean Par lia ment vis ited Slovakia. Its fi nal res o lu tion, pre sented at the Eu ro pean Par lia ment, stated that “the Toth case spot lighted a whole se -ries of struc tural short com ings in the sys tem, which cur rently make it dif fi cult, if notim pos si ble, to ex er cise ef fec tive con trol over the use of EU funds in Slovakia and pub -lic ex pen di ture in gen eral.”25 In Oc to ber, the same com mit tee con di tionedthe re lease of EUR 15 mil lion of 2001 pre-accession aid al lo cated forSlovakia on sub mis sion of fi nal re ports by OLAF and Au dit Of fice.Four weeks later, the Slo vak Vice Pre mier for In te gra tion MariaKadlecikova an nounced “rev o lu tion ary changes at the Of fice of Gov ern ment”and a set of mea sures to im prove the fi nan cial man age ment ofpre-accession funds was sub mit ted to the EC.

In the mean time, sev eral in sti tu tional re forms took place. For ex am -ple, pro gram ming for PHARE cross bound ary co op er a tion was trans -ferred from the Of fice of Gov ern ment to the Min is try of Con struc tionand Re gional De vel op ment (Au gust 2001) and, most im por tantly, thepo si tion of the Ex ec u tive Na tional Aid Co or di na tor was elim i nated(De cem ber 2001). The web sites re lated to pre-accession aid were sig -nif i cantly im proved and a co or di na tion di rec tive on EU aid wasadopted. The ap proved EUR 500 000 pro ject for the Stupava motor way junc tion was can cel led. Wal ter Rochel, head of the EC Del e ga tion inBratislava, ended his mis sion in Slovakia ear lier than ex pected, in De -cem ber 2001.

How ever, we be lieve that the above-mentioned steps should havebeen taken at least four years ago and must not be con sid ered a sat is fac -tory so lu tion. The key ques tion is to en sure that EU funds will com plyboth with long-term pri or i ties of Slovakia and the EU and cri te ria ofsustainability.

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ISPAEn vi ron men tal Sec tor

Slovakia failed in the timely prep a ra tion of both strat e gies and struc -tures for the ef fec tive use of ISPA funds. Ac cord ing to Slo vak NGOsthe pro cess of de vel op ing the Na tional ISPA strat egy for the en vi ron -ment was not trans par ent and lacked pub lic par tic i pa tion. The doc u -ment did not un dergo an en vi ron men tal im pact as sess ment and shouldbe amended.26 This is one of the rea sons why the port fo lio of pro jectswithin this sec tor en tirely con sists of sim ple, end of the pipe so lu tionsfor en vi ron men tal prob lems (sew age treat ment plants) rather than pro -jects fo cus sing on the pre ven tion of the prob lems.

In 1999, Slovakia sub mit ted six en vi ron men tal pro jects to Brusselsbut, be cause of their low qual ity, none of them was ac cepted. More over, Slovakia was urged to com plete its Na tional ISPA strat egy for the en vi -ron ment. In late 2000, the first set of in vest ment pro jects were ap -proved by the ISPA Man age ment Com mit tee, but still with out anap proved strat egy.27 The pro jects in cluded three mu nic i pal wastewatertreat ment plants. Slovakia is the only can di date coun try which failed touti lise avail able funds from the ISPA programme in 2000 ear marked forthe coun try, de spite ex cep tions en abling a dis pro por tion ate dis tri bu tion of fund uti li sa tion (27 per cent for en vi ron men tal pro jects, and 73 per -cent for a pro ject in the area of trans port).28 The un spent EUR 4 mil lionwas al lo cated to Slovenia. Ac cord ing to Carsten Ras mus sen, ISPA deskof fi cer at DG Regio, the low qual ity of the sub mit ted pro jects may cause Slovakia to lose an ad di tional EUR 20 mil lion in 2002.

The staff ing and tech ni cal equip ment of both the pro gram ming andim ple men ta tion units at the Min is try of En vi ron ment is in suf fi cient.Low sal a ries re sult in fre quent fluc tu a tion of the staff and pre vent thebuild ing of ca pac i ties for ef fec tive use of the much larger struc turalfunds which will sub sti tute for ISPA af ter ac ces sion. The se lec tion pro -cess is not trans par ent and lacks clear rules. Un til re cently, there was nopub lic in for ma tion sys tem and an ex tremely weak con trol and mon i tor -ing sys tem on both the Slo vak and the EU sides. Such an en vi ron menten cour aged ir reg u lar i ties and per haps even cor rup tion. In spring 2001,for ex am ple, the me dia un cov ered in for ma tion con cern ing the ac tive

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par tic i pa tion of Roland Toth, for mer Ex ec u tive Na tional Aid Co or di -na tor (re spon si ble for PHARE pro gram ming) and at the same time Di -rec tor of De part ment of For eign As sis tance (di rect su pe rior to CFCU,cen tral im ple men ta tion agency) in the ac tiv i ties of the Bioclar com pany,en gaged in the con struc tion of ISPA-funded sew age treat ment plants.29

But even now, a few months af ter the gov ern ment an nounced strictmea sures to com bat cor rup tion, the sit u a tion does not seem solved.“We see a cer tain po lit i cal back ground in de ci sion-making,” C. Ras mus senadded in early 2002.30

In 2001 six pro jects re ceived tech ni cal as sis tance (with ap prox i -mately EUR 180 000 for each) to be tech ni cally final ised and el i gi ble forsub mis sion to the ISPA Man age ment Com mit tee. One of them was apro ject called “Pro tec tion of drink ing wa ter from Wa ter Dam Starina.”WOLF For est Pro tec tion As so ci a tion, an NGO ac tive in for est and wa -ter pro tec tion in the re gion, strongly op posed the pro ject from the verybe gin ning and de vel oped com pre hen sive ar gu ments why it should notbe sup ported. Ac cord ing to WOLF, the pro ject would only in crease thedan ger to the Starina res er voir for drink ing wa ter while con trib ut ing toother en vi ron men tal dam ages in the re gion as well. Its voice was ig -nored by both the EC and the Slo vak Min is try of En vi ron ment. Onlyaf ter wast ing ISPA funds for tech ni cal as sis tance, grow ing NGO pro -tests and per sonal vis its to the site by C. Ras mus sen to the re gion in late2001, did the EC ex press ob jec tions con cern ing the pro ject and theMin is try of En vi ron ment stopped any fur ther work on it in De cem ber2001.

CEPA, a Slo vak mem ber or gani sa tion of CEE Bankwatch Net workand Friends of the Earth, draws at ten tion to an other is sue: the dan ger of chan nel ling ISPA funds in fa vour of pri vate com pa nies. Cur rently,ISPA pro vides funds for new sew age treat ment sys tems in the pro cessof trans form ing wa ter and sew age fa cil i ties. If pri vate mul ti na tionalcom pa nies will suc ceed in their long-term ef forts to pri va tise ser vices ofthe wa ter sec tor af ter the trans fer of own er ship from state to mu nic i pal -i ties, then ISPA-funded in vest ments will serve mostly pri vate in ter ests.

On the other hand, there are at tempts to de sign ISPA and PHAREpro jects ac cord ing to the needs of ma jor re gional pol lut ers who havestrong links to the po lit i cal elite in the re gion. The suc cess of such ef -

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forts rep re sents not only a di rect vi o la tion of the “pol luter pays” prin ci -ple, one of the el e ments of the EU´s en vi ron men tal pol icy, but alsopro vides an other un fair pub lic sub sidy, by-passing the EU´s reg u la tionson state aid and com pet i tive ness.

NGOs also called on the EU to con sider a change in the re quire -ment for a min i mum limit of EUR 5 mil lion for in di vid ual ISPA pro -jects. They ar gued that such a limit rep re sented a di rect in cen tive forde vel op ing over es ti mated pro jects for which ca pac i ties far ex ceed thereal needs.31 This po si tion was also re peat edly sup ported by the Min is ter of En vi ron ment and other rep re sen ta tives of the state ad min is tra tionand mu nic i pal i ties in Slovakia. In De cem ber 2001, the Slo vak pressagency pub lished in for ma tion that the EU would also sup port smallerpro jects from the ISPA pro gram.32 Al though Brussels is not in fa vour of de creas ing the EUR five mil lion limit for one pro ject, it could po ten -tially sup port clus ters of smaller pro jects sub mit ted at once.

Trans port Sec torThe over all pri or i ties of ISPA in the trans port sec tor in clude “in fra -

struc ture pro jects which en cour age sus tain able forms of mov ing peo ple and goods, par -tic u larly pro jects which are of Com mu nity in ter est, iden ti fied at the Hel sinki andCrete con fer ences.”33 How ever, transport in fra struc ture plans pro posed bythe Slo vak Gov ern ment to its EU part ners at these con fer ences werede vel oped dur ing the pe riod of the au thor i tar ian gov ern ment of Vladi -mir Meciar in a highly non-transparent man ner, lack ing any in de pend ent cost-benefit, least-cost, and op por tu nity cost anal y ses, as well as stra te -gic en vi ron men tal im pact as sess ment. There fore, the trans-Europeannet work cor ri dors in Slovakia merely copy old gov ern men tal schemesde vel oped with out any pub lic par tic i pa tion. As a re sult, they rep re sentan ex plicit ne ga tion of what could be con sid ered as pol icy en cour ag ingsus tain able forms of trans port: the plans pre fer in di vid ual trans port atthe ex pense of pub lic trans port and the con struc tion of in ter na tionalcor ri dors at the ex penses of de vel op ing lo cal net works.

Ac cord ing to a list of pri or ity pro jects in the trans port sec tor for thepe riod of 2000-2006, EUR 458,9 mil lion are planned for con struc tionof high ways and roads and EUR 588,5 mil lion for rail way in fra struc ture. More then 81 per cent of the planned in vest ments are to be con cen trated

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in North west Slovakia as a part of Multi-modal cor ri dors Nos. V and VI(as de fined in the Trans port In fra struc ture Needs As sess ment - TINA)and the only pro ject out side these cor ri dors is a 26 km sec tion of high -way lo cated in East Slovakia.34 In this re spect the ISPA in vest ment strat -egy con tra dicts the very spirit of the EU´s re gional pol icy. In stead ofal le vi at ing sharp so cial and eco nomic dis par i ties among the re gions itwill fur ther deepen them.

For ex am ple, in vest ments are not planned to fix de te ri o rat ing re -gional and lo cal rail in fra struc ture and ma chin ery, but in stead the mostde vel oped rail way sec tions in the coun try will be mod ern ised. In termsof the pro posed high way pro jects, they rep re sent a key seg ment of thestate high way pro gram, the larg est pub lic in fra struc ture in vest ment inthe coun try. The pro gram not only con trib utes to the grow ing in debt ed -ness of Slovakia but it also blocks a sig nif i cant por tion of pub lic fundsfor the de vel op ment of more ef fec tive, less costly, so cially ac cept able,re gion ally more bal anced and en vi ron men tally more sus tain able al ter na -tives. “It is an irony that in clu sion of E 50 and E 75 roads into the pan-Europeantrans port cor ri dors in the mid-nineties be came the ma jor ar gu ment of the con struc tionin dus try to jus tify this ex tremely waste ful pro gram,” stated Friends of the Earth, in its state ments at the con fer ence on struc tural funds held in Bratislavain Feb ru ary 2002.

Also in the trans port sec tor, the ab sence of ef fec tive pub lic con trolcre ates a fer tile ground for ir reg u lar i ties in the im ple men ta tion phase. InDe cem ber 2001, for in stance, the me dia pub lished an ar ti cle that sug -gested a ma nip u la tion of the ten der ing pro cess con cern ing a EUR 41mil lion rail way pro ject.35

In Jan u ary 2002, the Slo vak gov ern ment adopted an up dated Na -tional ISPA strat egy for trans port. The new doc u ment, how ever, doesnot in clude any changes of pri or i ties but merely rep re sents an ex ten sionof the list of pro jects within the VI. Cor ri dor in or der to make them el i -gi ble for the ex pected in crease of ISPA funds, and af ter ac ces sion alsoCo he sion funds. The new es ti mated vol ume of ISPA-funded trans portpro jects as pro posed in the strat egy is EUR 1 257,8 mil lion. How ever,ac cord ing to Slo vak NGOs, the na tional trans port pri or i ties as well asthe whole Na tional ISPA strat egy for trans port and ISPA in vest ment

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strat egy must be sub stan tially re viewed and screened in a trans par entand par tic i pa tory pro cess of stra te gic en vi ron men tal as sess ment.

SAPARDThe Na tional Programme for the Adop tion of the Acquis, adopted

and up dated each year by the can di date coun tries in con sul ta tion withthe EC, sets out how the coun try con cerned will pre pare for ac ces sionin each sec tor. The Na tional Programme in cludes a time ta ble forachiev ing the ob jec tives and, where pos si ble, the costs and hu man re -sources re quired. In ag ri cul ture, the most spe cific type of sup port forachiev ing this is through the SAPARD.

For the pe riod 2000-2006, the EU al lo cated ap prox i mately EUR18,3 mil lion per year for SAPARD for Slovakia. Since Slovakia still hasnot ful filled the con di tions for start ing the pro gram, the EC agreed thatfunds al lo cated for 2000 and 2001 may be uti lised up to the end of 2002.All SAPARD pro jects will be co-financed by the EU and the can di datecoun try. For non-commercial pro jects and pub lic sec tor pro jects,SAPARD con tri bu tion may reach a max i mum of 75 per cent, with 25per cent co-financing from the can di date coun try. For rev e nue gen er at -ing in vest ment, the min i mum rate for pri vate in vest ment is 50 per cent.Tech ni cal as sis tance can be funded up to 100 per cent from SAPARD.

The con di tions for the trans fer of al lo cated funds to the can di datecoun tries in clude adop tion of a seven-year Ru ral De vel op ment Plan; ac -cred i ta tion of a spe cial SAPARD agency and de vel op ment in fra struc -ture for ef fec tive im ple men ta tion of se lected mea sures as de fined in theRu ral De vel op ment Plan.

Ru ral De vel op ment PlanAl though al lo ca tion of funds for each can di date coun try be gins in

2000, due to var i ous ob jec tions by the EC, the Ru ral De vel op ment Planwas en dorsed by the STAR Com mit tee of the DG Ag ri cul ture in Oc to -ber 2000. The Plan should be up dated on an nual ba sis (the new est RDPup date for Slovakia was ap proved by the STAR Com mit tee in Feb ru ary2002).

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The Ru ral De vel op ment Plan sets out the mea sures which Slovakiabe lieves are nec es sary to im ple ment the acquis and re solve pri or ityprob lems within the ag ri cul tural sec tor, in clud ing the el i gi bil ity rules forfund ing and the in tended ben e fi cia ries. The mea sures un der three pri or -i ties were de fined by the EC and each coun try could pick some of themac cord ing to their na tional pref er ence. Slovakia se lected the fol low ing:36

Pri or ities Mea suresIm prove ment of the ag ri cul -tural pro duc tion sec tor in clud -ing the food in dus try

1. In vest ment in ag ri cul tural en ter prises2. Im prove ment of pro cess ing and mar -ket ing of ag ri cul tural and fish prod ucts

3. Set ting-up of pro duc ers groupsSus tain able ru ral de vel op ment 4. Di ver si fi ca tion ac tiv i ties in ru ral ar eas

5. For estry6. Ag ri cul tural pro duc tion meth ods de -signed to pro tect the en vi ron ment andmain tain the coun try side

De vel op ment of hu man ac tiv i -ties

8. De vel op ment of hu man re sources9. Tech ni cal as sis tance

The orig i nal in ten tion of the Slo vak Min is try of Ag ri cul ture was tofo cus the SAPARD funds mostly on the de vel op ment of re gions withun fa vour able nat u ral con di tions for ag ri cul ture. Brussels, how ever, re -jected this idea, ar gu ing that SAPARD does not rep re sent any pro gramsto pro tect the so cial or nat u ral en vi ron ment, but rather should be usedto im prove com pet i tive ness, pro duc tion, pro cess ing and mar ket ing ofSlo vak ag ri cul ture and for estry. The re sults of the in ter fer ence by theEC dur ing prep a ra tion of the Ru ral De vel op ment Plan is, there fore,some times ques tion able from the sustainability point of view. For ex -am ple, a list of fu ture SAPARD in vest ments in the for estry sec tor in -clude mostly log ging and trans port ma chin ery and equip ment forpri mary tim ber pro cess ing.

122

CEPA

Sim i larly, based on pres sure from Brussels, the small farm ers, for estown ers and en tre pre neurs in tour ism will be hand i capped. For ex am ple, in tour ism de vel op ment, only those fa cil i ties with more than ten bedswill be el i gi ble for SAPARD sup port. In the last up date of the Plan, con -di tions for small farm ers for re ceiv ing sup port fur ther wors ened.

SAPARD AgencyThe agency will hold the sole re spon si bil ity for se lect ing and man ag -

ing pro jects, ar rang ing fi nance and car ry ing out con trols. Al though ithas been op er at ing since Jan u ary 1, 2000 and it em ploys around 90 staff,the agency has still not been able to ob tain EC ac cred i ta tion. There areeight re gional SAPARD agen cies op er at ing in each NUTS3 re gionalunit in Slovakia. The qual ity of per son nel, the lack of struc tures for im -ple men ta tion of in di vid ual mea sures and de fi cien cies re ported by theau dit com pany were the ma jor rea sons for not ob tain ing ac cred i ta tion.

Slovakia still has not sub mit ted the needed doc u men ta tion re gard -ing the se lected mea sures for ap proval to Brussels. It is as sumed that im -ple men ta tion of each mea sure will pro ceed ac cord ing to the plan,meth od ol ogy, and be ad min is tered within a clear struc ture. Slo vak of fi -cials at the SAPARD agency ex pect that by the end of May five mea -sures will be ac cred ited (with the rest by the end of 2002) and that thefirst pro jects could be sup ported in 2002. Oth er wise, Slovakia will losethe al lo cated sum.

Con clu sionTo date, the ex pe ri ence with pre-accession as sis tance in Slovakia

show that the trans for ma tion of so ci ety to wards de moc racy, trans par -ency and sustainability has not be come a real Gov ern ment pri or ity.There fore, nei ther ad e quate sup port in tech ni cal nor po lit i cal terms hasbeen pro vided for this pur pose. Ad di tionally, the EU has also been in ca -pa ble of cre at ing ef fec tive mech a nisms to en sure that Slovakia ful fils the ba sic goals of such a trans for ma tion.

123

Slovak Republic

This opens a few per ti nent ques tions. First, how much greaterwould the ef fect of the EU funds have been up to now if the de ci sionsre gard ing them had been made trans par ently and dem o crat i cally, withre spect for so ci etal pri or i ties? Sec ond, what mea sures will Brussels andBratislava take to thor oughly re place the pres ent sys tem with a new,trans par ent, and dem o cratic sys tem for ob jec tively ad min is trat ing thepre-accession and sub se quent struc tural funds? Third, how much will itcost and will these mea sures be im ple mented in time? An other im por -tant ques tion is also how much are both sides com mit ted to the sus tain -

able de vel op ment con cept and strat egy as well as to in te gra tion of

124

CEPA

EU Pre-Accession Funds Allocationsfor Period 1993-2001

39,5 40,5 41,5 39,0 45,9

69,5

28,036,2

8,0

12,012,0

2,2

5,06,0

0,0

20,0

40,0

60,0

80,0

100,0

120,0

140,0

160,0

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

rok

Národný program CBC Nuclear Safety ISPA SAPARD Horizontal Activities

en vi ron men tal prin ci ples into strat e gies and on a prac ti cal level – pro -jects.

The re cent cor rup tion scan dal placed these ques tions tem po rarilyon the top of the po lit i cal agenda in Slovakia. It is in the gen eral in ter estof both Slovakia and the EU to take the les sons from it se ri ously and totrans late them into real po lit i cal prac tice.

125

Slovak Republic

126

Endnotes

1 Radnevo is the cen ter of the mu nic i pal ity, but sit u ated around 10 km farfrom the pro posed plat form. The real af fected vil lages are Kovachevo, Petmogili, Radecki, Novoselec, Mlekarevo, lo cated in dis tance from 2,5 to 5 km. From a sim i lar dis tance to the vil lages are sit u ated also the big gest Ther malPower Plant com plex “Marica Iztok” in Bul garia and the min ing ex trac tion en -ter prise “Mini Marica Iztok” Ltd. The re gion is of fi cially pointed to as a hot en -vi ron men tal point of Bul garia.

2 Man aging Natura 2000 sites: The pro vi sion of Ar ti cle 6 of the “Hab i tats” Di rec tive 92/43/EEC, Lux em bourg: Of fice for Of fi cial Pub li ca tions of theEu ro pean Com mis sion, 2000

3 Along with waste man age ment and waste wa ter treat ment pro jects, ISPA as sis tance was also granted for tech ni cal as sis tance: Tech ni cal as sis tance forthe de vel op ment of the qual ity of ISPA pro ject pro pos als and for the prep a ra -tion of ten der doc u ments: 2000/HU/16/P/PA/005; Tech ni cal as sis tance forthe prep a ra tion of ISPA pro jects for 2002: 2001/HU/16/P/PA/009

4 So far, Fi nan cial Mem o ran da of the fol low ing waste man age ment ISPApro jects have been signed: Se lec tive waste col lec tion and com mu nal wasteman age ment in Hajdú-Bihar county: 2000/HU/16/P/PE/002; Waste man -age ment in the Miskolc re gion: 2000/HU/16/P/PE/004; Waste man age ment in the Szeged re gion 2000/HU/16/P/PE/005; Waste man age ment sys tem inthe Szolnok re gion: 2000/HU/16/P/PE/007; De vel op ment of Mu nic i palWaste Man age ment Sys tem in the area of Tisza-lake:2000/HU/16/P/PE/006; and Com mu nal solid waste man age ment sys tem ofthe Mid-Danube-Tisza Plain Re gion: 2001/HU/16/P/PE/008

5 De vel op ment of the Gyõr waste wa ter treat ment plant:2000/HU/16/P/PE/001; De vel op ment of the sew age sys tem and the mu nic -i pal waste wa ter treat ment plant in the city of Szeged:2000/HU/16/P/PE/003; Sew er age and Sew age Treat ment Programme inSopron: 2001/HU/16/P/PE/011

6 Tech ni cal as sis tance for the Bu da pest waste wa ter treat ment pro ject:2000/HU/16/P/PA/001

127

Endnotes

7 Re con struc tion of the Zalalövõ-Zalaegerszeg-Boba rail line:2000/HU/16/P/PT/003; Re con struc tion of the Bu da -pest-Cegléd-Szolnok-Lökösháza rail line: 2000/HU/16/P/PT/001; Road re -ha bil i ta tion programme for achiev ing 11.5 tons load bear ing ca pac ity, Phase I:2001/HU/16/P/PT/006; Tech ni cal as sis tance for the prep a ra tion of the“Re con struc tion of the Bu da pest-Cegléd-Szolnok-Lökösháza rail line” pro -ject: 2000/HU/16/P/PA/003; and Tech ni cal as sis tance for the ten der ingpro ce dures for pro jects fi nanced un der ISPA: 2000/HU/16/P/PA/002

8 "Jaka ma byc polityka transportowa", A.S. Grzelakowski,Rzeczpospolita, Feb ru ary 15, 2002

9 Re port from the Com mis sion, An nual Re port of the In stru ment forStruc tural Pol icy for Pre-accession (ISPA) 2000; Brussels, Oc to ber 31, 2001;COM(2001)616 fi nal

10 Ibi dem 11 Informacja Okresowa PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD; Com mit tee for Eu -

ro pean In te gra tion; Feb ru ary 200212 The Lost High way – EIB In volve ment in the Con struc tion of A4;

Rob ert Cyglicki, Pol ish Green Net, www.bankwatch.org13 Re port 1/2001 by the com mit tee del e ga tion on its visit to Slovakia

from June 19-22, 2001.14 Up date for Slovakia cov ers a broader anal y sis of the mis use of EU

funds, which was briefly sig naled in the pre vi ous brief ing15 Pro posals and Rec om men da tions for Re forming the Man age ment of

PHARE Funds in Slovakia. Friends of the Earth Slovakia, Oc to ber 2001.16 The im ple men ta tion pro cess of the PHARE Programme in prin ci ple

con sists of five phases: pro cure ment, con tract ing, fi nanc ing, mon i tor ing, andeval u a tion.

17 Pro gramming con sists of prep a ra tion of pro gram ming stage, iden ti fi ca -tion of pro jects, pro ject prep a ra tion, sub mis sion of pro jects for ap proval bythe EC, and prep a ra tion and sign ing of the Fi nancing Mem o ran dum.

18 It is, there fore, im por tant to con sider Slovakia´s ex pe ri ences with theCFCU since sim i lar units are also be ing es tab lished in other coun tries.

128

Endnotes

19 An in ter nal 1999 EC au dit eval u ated the en tire PHARE CBCprogramme in Slovakia as be ing un sat is fac tory, which is the sec ond worst level on a scale of five.

20 “A Clear Road to Un ion Funds”, Pravda, April 28, 2001.21 Gabriela Kaliska: “For mer Gov ern ment Of fi cial Denies Ac cu sa tion”,

Pravda, April 7, 2001.22 Nat u rally, ab sence of in for ma tion and chang ing rules heavily af fected

the ef fec tive ness of par tic i pa tion of NGO rep re sen ta tives in dif fer ent com -mit tees, work ing groups and com mis sions at var i ous phases of both pro gram -ming and im ple men ta tion.

23 For ex am ple, a rep re sen ta tive of the EC Del e ga tion con firmed that theEx ec u tive Na tional Aid Co or di na tor Roland Toth spread dis in for ma tion dur -ing pro gram ming of PHARE ECOSOC in Oc to ber 2000.

24 Daily SME, Sep tem ber 4, 2001.25 Re port 1/2001 by the com mit tee del e ga tion on its visit to Slovakia

from June 19-22, 2001.26 Due to ap proval of the Im ple men ta tion plan for Chap ter on En vi ron -

ment by the EC in De cem ber 2001 the Min is try of En vi ron ment plans toammend the Na tional ISPA strat egy for en vi ron ment in or der to udpate pri or -ity ac tions as de fined in the im ple men ta tion plan.

27 The then ver sion of the Na tional ISPA strat egy for en vi ron ment wasclas si fied by the EC as un sat is fac tory. It must be noted, how ever, that one ofthe rea sons for de lay in sub mit ting the na tional ISPA strat egy was missleadingand un clear in struc tions from the EC.

28 ISPA re port, DG Regio, Feb ru ary 2001.29 At that time, R. Toth´s post con cen trated a de ter min ing power in both

pro gram ming and im ple men ta tion of pro jects funded from pre-accession as -sis tance, es pe cially PHARE. Gabriela Kaliska: “For mer Gov ern ment Of fi cialDenies Ac cu sa tion,” Pravda, April 7, 2001.

30 Katarina Zackova: “Slovakia is not even able to use ISPA funds whichare of fered,” TREND, Jan u ary 16, 2002.

31 Ac cord ing to NGOs, the ISPA-funded wastewater treat ment plant inBanska Bystrica could be re placed by a sig nif i cantly less ex pen sive sew age sys -

129

Endnotes

tem. The cur rent limit for ISPA pro jects poses a risk that smaller cit ies and vil -lages will sub mit pro jects of large-scale fa cil i ties in or der to meet el i gi bil itycri te ria. Source: Po si tion Pa per of the Slo vak NGOs.

32 Con sor tium ETP Slovakia, REC Slovakia and DAPHNE, No vem ber2000.

33 “The EÚ will also sup port smaller re gional pro jects,” SME, De cem ber, 11 2001.

34 Po si tion Pa per of Slo vak NGOs. Con sor tium ETP Slovakia, RECSlovakia and DAPHNE, No vem ber 2000.

35 “Prime Min is ter to Rail ways, Rail ways to Prime Min is ter,” SME, 11thDe cem ber 2001. “Changes in Se lec tion Com mit tee Did Not En dan ger Ten -der,” SME, De cem ber 7, 2001.

36 Thanks to NGO par tic i pa tion in prep a ra tion of the RDP, mea sure 6was in cluded as a part of sec ond pri or ity.

130

Endnotes

131

List of ISPA Pro jects Ap proved by theEu ro pean Com mis sion

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Bul garia

Waste man age ment: Set of sixregional waste dis posal siteslocated in Montana, Ruse, Pernik, Sevlievo, Silistra and Sozopol(2000/BG/16/P/PE/002)

45 433 135 60 577 513

Bul garia

Con struc tion of WastewaterTreat ment Plants located in theMaritsa Basin (Stara Zagora,Dimitrovgrad)(2000/BG/16/P/PE/003)

32 549 766 43 399 688

Bul garia

Regional Wastewater col lec tionand treat ment located in GornaOriahovitza, Dan ube river basin(2001/BG/16/P/PE/005)

12 475 459 16 633 945

Bul garia

Wastewater col lec tion and treat -ment located in Pazardjik,Maritsa river basin(2001/BG/16/P/PE/006)

12 422 129 19 110 968

Bul gariaWastewater treat ment located inBlagoevrad, West Aegean riverbasin (2001/BG/16/P/PE/008)

8 806 326 12 580 465

Bul garia

Tran sit Roads Reha bil i ta tionPro ject III: sec tions on thePan-European Trans port cor ri -dors (2000/BG/16/P/PT/001)

30 000 000 40 000 000

Bul garia

Sofia Air port Recon struc tion,Devel op ment and Exten sion:Lot B1 – New Ter mi nal andRelated Infra struc ture(2000/BG/16/P/PT/002)

50 000 000 135 135 000

ISPA Projects

132

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

BulgariaPlovdiv-Svilengrad Rail way elec -tri fi ca tion and upgrad ing(2001/BG/16/P/PT/003)

153 000 000 340 000 000

Bulgaria

Dan ube Bridge – Tech ni calAssis tance for the Recruit ment of Inter na tional Engi neering andMan age ment Con sul tant(2001/BG/16/P/PA/001)

4 998 000 5 880 000

CzechRepub lic

Exten sion of the Sew er age Sys -tem in the City of Ostrava(2000/CZ/16/P/PE/001)

16 644 682 n.a.

CzechRepub lic

Sewer Sys tem of the City of Brno(2000/CZ/16/P/PE/002)

17 841 373 n.a.

CzechRepub lic

Tech ni cal Assis tance for Pro jectPrep a ra tion in the Envi ron mentSec tor(2000/CZ/16/P/PA/002)

285 000 n.a.

CzechRepub lic

Tech ni cal assis tance for pro jectman age ment and imple men ta -tion

n.a. n.a.

CzechRepub lic

Recon struc tion of drink ing water sup ply sys tem, con struc tion ofsew er age sys tem, recon struc tionof water treat ment and wastewater treat ment in the region ofPodkrusnohori (North Bohe mia) (2001/CZ/16/P/PE/004)

12 870 325 19 800 500

CzechRepub lic

Jihlava Waste Water Treat mentPlant and Sewer Sys temUpgrading(2001/CZ/16/P/PE/005)

9 620 000 14 800 000

CzechRepub lic

R48 Express way: Belotín by-pass(2000/CZ/16/P/PT/001)

17 117 121 28 528 535

ISPA Projects

133

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

CzechRepub lic

Opti mi sa tion of the Ústi nadOrlicí –Ceská Trebová rail waysec tion(2000/CZ/16/P/PT/002)

14 300 080 28 600 160

CzechRepub lic

Express way: Sec tion of R48Express wayFrýdek-Místek-Dobrá(2000/CZ/16/P/PT/003)

20 391 677 33 986 128

CzechRepub lic

Rail way: Mod erni sa tion of theZáborí-Prelouc rail way sec tion(2000/CZ/16/P/PT/006)

30 907 420 61 814 839

CzechRepub lic

Rail way: Mod erni sa tion of theZáborí-Prelouc rail way sec tion(2000/CZ/16/P/PT/006)

30 907 420 61 814 839

CzechRepub lic

Tech ni cal assis tance for the pro -ject prep a ra tion in the field oftrans port(2000/CZ/16/P/PA/001)

625 000 833 333

CzechRepub lic

Express way R48 –Dobrà-Tosanovice-Zukov: stage1: Dobrà-Tosanovice(2001/CZ/16/P/PT/012)

19 797 676 32 996 127

CzechRepub lic

Assis tance to the Min is try ofTrans port and Com mu ni ca tionsin pro ject man age ment andimple men ta tion of ISPA(2001/CZ/16/P/PA/003)

200 000 200 000

Estonia Tartu Tun nel Col lec tor (K2)(2000/EE/16/P/PE/001)

5 467 000 7 700 000

Esto niaCen tral Munic i pal WastewaterTreat ment Plant in Viljandi(2000/EE/16/P/PE/002)

4 707 251 6 361 150

Esto niaNarva City Sew age Treat mentPlant Reha bil i ta tion(2000/EE/16/P/PE/003)

5 003 600 8 935 000

134

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Esto nia

Tallinn waste man age ment(phase I: estab lish ment ofJõelähtme land fill)(2000/EE/16/P/PE/004)

4 582 500 6 110 000

Esto niaTallinn waste man age ment(phase II: clos ing Pääsküla land -fill)

n.a. n.a.

Esto nia

Pärnu Waste Man age ment (Con -struc tion of San i tary Land fill andClo sure of Existing Land fill,County of Pärnu)(2001/EE/16/P/PE/006)

5 489 498 n.a.

Esto niaExpan sion and Reha bil i ta tion ofTartu Water and Sew er age Net -work (2001/EE/16/P/PE/007)

12 084 200 n.a.

Esto nia

Tech ni cal Assis tance for PärnuRiver Basin - Water Man age mentInfra struc ture Plan for Com pli -ance with EC Water Leg is la tion(2001/EE/16/P/PA/003)

150 000 n.a.

Esto nia

Tech ni cal Assis tance forEast-Harju and Keila Vasalemma Water Pro tec tion(2001/EE/16/P/PA/005)

720 000 n.a.

Esto niaVia Baltica: reha bil i ta tion ofIkla-Tallinn-Narva road (phase I) (2000/EE/16/P/PT/001)

14 100 000 18 885 210

Esto nia

Tech ni cal assis tance in the railsec tor (detailed design, ten derdoc u ments and detailed envi ron -men tal impact assess ment forSouth-East Rail way Bor der Sta -tion) (2000/EE/16/P/PA/001)

1 350 000 1 800 000

Esto niaVia Baltica: reha bil i ta tion ofIkla-Tallinn-Narva sec tion(phase II)

n.a. n.a.

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Esto nia

Tech ni cal Assis tance for Recon -struc tion of Väo-Mardu of E20Tallinn-Narva Road(2001/EE/16/P/PA/004)

375 000 n.a.

Esto nia Tech ni cal assis tance for decen -trali sa tion

n.a. n.a.

HungaryUpgrading of Sew age Treat mentPlant at Györ 2000/HU/16/P/PE/001)

7 250 000 14 500 000

Hun gary

Selec tive Waste Col lec tion andMan age ment Sys tem forHajdú-Bíhar County(2000/HU/16/P/PE/002)

14 054 000 18 738 000

Hun gary

Szeged Munic i pal WastewaterTreat ment and Col lec tion Devel -op ment(2000/HU/16/P/PE/003

33 325 000 66 650 000

Hun garyMiskolc: regional waste man age -ment pro ject(2000/HU/16/P/PE/004)

9 030 000 12 900 000

Hun garySzeged regional waste man age -ment programme(2000/HU/16/P/PE/005)

8 318 654 12 797 930

Hun gary

Devel op ment of Munic i palWaste Man age ment Sys tem inthe area of Tisza-lake(2000/HU/16/P/PE/006)

4 884 000 8 140 000

Hun gary

Tech ni cal assis tance relat ing tothe Buda pest Munic i palWastewater Treat ment and Col -lec tion Devel op ment(2000/HU/16/P/PA/001)

1 572 150 2 096 200

135

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)Hun gary Tech ni cal assis tance: Review and

qual i ta tive improve ment of ISPA pro ject doc u ments for the year2001 and assis tance in the prep a -ra tion of ten der doc u ments ofpro jects located in the Repub licof Hun gary(2000/HU/16/P/PA/005)

303 750 405 000

Hun gary

Com mu nal Solid Waste Man age -ment Sys tem located inMid-Danube-Tisza Plain GreaterRegion(2001/HU/16/P/PE/008)

11 869 500 23 739 000

Hun gary

Exten sion of the sew er age sys -tem of Pécs and pro tec tion of the vul ner a ble water resource areasin Pécs(2001/HU/16/P/PE/009)

10 853 500 21 707 000

Hun garySew er age and Sew age Treat mentProgramme in Sopron(2001/HU/16/P/PE/011)

6 364 500 12 729 000

Hun garySew er age and Sew age Treat mentProgramme in Sopron(2001/HU/16/P/PE/011)

9 341 000 18 682 000

Hun gary

Tech ni cal Assis tance for aProgramme for Imple men ta tionof the Urban Wastewater Direc -tives in major cit ies(2001/HU/16/P/PA/008)

142 500 190 000

Hun gary

Tech ni cal Assis tance for theprep a ra tion of ISPA pro ject doc -u ments for 2002 for Hun gary(2001/HU/16/P/PA/009)

1 080 000 1 440 000

136

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Hun gary

Rail way: Reha bil i ta tion of theBuda -pest-Cegled-Szolnok-Lököskázaline (stage I: Vecsés-Szolnok Sec -tion) (2000/HU/16/P/PT/001)

63 000 000 126 000 000

Hun gary

Rail way: Reha bil i ta tion of theBuda pest-Györ-Hegyeshalomline (stage II)(2000/HU/16/P/PT/002)

42 994 000 85 988 000

Hun garyRail way: Reha bil i ta tion of theZalalövö-Zalaegerszeg-Boba line (2000/HU/16/P/PT/003)

83 695 000 167 390 000

Hun garyRail way: Tech ni cal assis tance for theten der ing pro ce dure of the rail waypro jects (2000/HU/16/P/PA/002)

118 575 158 100

Hun gary

Rail way: Tech ni cal assis tance forthe prep a ra tion of the pro ject“Reha bil i ta tion of the Szolnok-Lökösháza rail way line”(2000/HU/16/P/PA/003)

150 000 200 000

Hun gary

Tech ni cal assis tance for the prep -a ra tion of the pro ject “RoadReha bil i ta tion Programme forachiev ing the 11.5 tons load bear -ing capac ity”(2000/HU/16/P/PA/004)

150 000 200 000

Hun gary

Road reha bil i ta tion Programmefor achiev ing the 11.5 ton LoadBear ing Capac ity (phase I: Trunkroads 3 and 35)(2001/HU/16/P/PT/006)

19 999 540 39 999 080

Hun gary

Tech ni cal assis tance for the ten -der ing pro ce dure and super vi sion works of the rail way pro jects II(2001/HU/16/P/PA/006-007)

1 485 000 1 980 000

137

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

LatviaDevel op ment of water ser vices in Riga (phase II)(2000/LV/16/P/PE/001)

17 010 000 24 300 000

Lat via Devel op ment of water ser vices inJelgava (2000/LV/16/P/PE/002)

11 244 750 14 993 000

Lat viaDevel op ment of water ser vices in Ventspils(2000/LV/16/P/PE/003)

9 437 600 20 080 000

Lat viaSolid waste man age ment inLiepaja region(2001/LV/16/P/PE/005)

5 096 700 8 090 000

Lat viaSolid waste man age ment inZiemelvidzeme region(2001/LV/16/P/PE/006)

3 374 000 4 820 000

Lat viaDevel op ment of water ser vices in the river bas ins of East ern Lat via(2001/LV/16/P/PE/007)

44 616 000 67 600 000

Lat viaTech ni cal assis tance for envi ron -men tal pro jects(2000/LV/16/P/PA/001)

3 382 500 4 510 000

Latvia Sus tain able waste man age ment in Ventspils region

n.a. n.a.

Lat via

Improve ment of Via Baltica road(Pan Euro pean Cor ri dor I) fromkm 13.0 (Gauja) to km 21.2(Lilaste) in Lat via (north of Riga)(2000/LV/16/P/PT/001)

4 687 500 6 250 000

Lat via

Improve ments of links to ViaBaltica (Air port Access Road(P133) and a related sec tion onA10) (2000/LV/16/P/PT/002)

4 344 375 5 792 500

Lat viaReplace ment of track turn outs(Lat vian East-West rail cor ri dor)(2000/LV/16/P/PT/003

26 430 000 35 240 000

138

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Lat viaRezekne II recep tion yard (Lat vianEast-West rail cor ri dor)(2000/LV/16/P/PT/004)

7 660 010 10 213 346

Lat via

Tech ni cal Assis tance in the railsec tor (sig nal ling and safety con -trol sys tems)(2000/LV/16/P/PA/005)

318 750 425 000

Lat via

Improve ments of Via Baltica(Cor ri dor I) from Riga to Adazi(km 0 to km 6.3)(2001/LV/16/P/PT/005)

10 650 441 14 200 588

Lat viaMod erni sa tion of the sig nal ling sys -tem (Lat vian East-West rail cor ri dor)(2001/LV/16/P/PT/006)

67 463 223 89 950 964

Lat via

Tech ni cal Assis tance for intro -duc tion of the Extended Decen -tral ised Imple men ta tion Sys tem(EDIS) for man age ment of ISPAin Lat via(2001/LV/16/P/PA/006)

700 000 700 000

LithuaniaReha bil i ta tion and Exten sion ofWater Sup ply and Sew age Col lec tionSys tems in Vilnius (stages I and II)(2000/LT/16/P/PE/001)

20 000 000 40 000 000

Lith u a nia

Druskininkai Wastewater Treat -ment Sys tem, Upgrading andExten sion(2000/LT/16/P/PE/002)

n.a. n.a.

Lith u a niaAlytus regional waste man age -ment sys tem devel op ment(2001/LT/16/P/PE/003)

3 912 904 7 825 80

Lith u a niaTaurage regional waste man age -ment sys tem devel op ment(2001/LT/16/P/PE/004)

4 640 850 6 629 786

139

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Lith u a nia

Jonava Waste Water Treat mentPlant Recon struc tion, Sewer Net -work Exten sion and Pota bleWater Net work Reha bil i ta tion(2001/LT/16/P/PE/005)

3 755 940 6 259 900

Lith u a nia

Neringa town drink ing water andwastewater treat ment sys temsdevel op ment(2001/LT/16/P/PE/006)

4 771 910 10 153 00

Lith u a nia

Exten sion of Kaunas Wastewater Treat ment Plant for Bio log i calTreat ment and Net work Exten -sions (2001/LT/16/P/PE/007)

15 874 890 22 359 000

Lith u a niaSiauliai regional waste man age mentsys tem devel op ment(2001/LT/16/P/PE/008)

5 265 120 9 402 000

Lith u a nia

Sup port to the pro ject prep a ra -tion activ i ties for ISPA envi ron -ment pro jects(2001/LT/16/P/PA/002)

6 997 500 9 330 000

Lith u a niaUpgrading of IXB Trans portCor ri dor(2000/LT/16/P/PT/001)

19 562 000 26 082 000

Lith u a nia

Devel op ment of Via Baltica roadin 2000-2003 (Pan Euro peanCor ri dor I)(2000/LT/16/P/PT/002)

11 579 000 15 439 000

Lith u a nia

Mod erni sa tion of Tele com mu ni -ca tions, Power Sup ply and Sig -nalling on Crete Cor ri dor No IXB (2000/LT/16/P/PT/004)

11 412 360 31 701 000

Lith u a nia Devel op ment of Cor ri dor 1A(2001-2004)

n.a. n.a.

Lith u a nia Devel op ment of Cor ri dor 1A(2001-2004)

n.a. n.a.

140

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Lith u a niaTech ni cal assis tance for pro jectprep a ra tion fo rail way Crete Cor -ri dors

n.a. n.a.

Lith u a nia Mod erni sa tion of Crete Cor ri -dors: power sup ply sec tor 3

n.a. n.a.

Lithuania

Prep a ra tion of National Fundand ISPA Imple mentingAgencies to imple ment EDIS,includ ing Gap Assess ment,EDIS prep a ra tion and Com pli -ance Assess ment(2001/LT/16/P/PA/003)

381 420 381 420

PolandBydgoszcz water sup ply and sew -er age pro ject(2000/PL/16/P/PE/001)

32 500 000 66 200 000

Poland Gliwice waste water treat ment(2000/PL/16/P/PE/003)

35 189 350 66 395 000

Poland Katowice waste water treat ment(2000/PL/16/P/PE/004)

30 312 000 50 520 000

PolandKrakow: solid waste treat ment,stage I(2000/PL/16/P/PE/005)

14 092 600 22 730 000

Poland Lodz solid waste treat ment(2000/PL/16/P/PE/006)

12 984 000 21 640 000

Poland Gdynia: Waste treat ment plantfor Com mu nity Union

n.a. n.a.

Poland Water-pipe net work in Pila(2000/PL/16/P/PE/008)

n.a. n.a.

PolandWaste water treat ment inPrzemysl(2000/PL/16/P/PE/009)

8 722 000 17 444 000

PolandWater and sew age man age mentin Torun(2000/PL/16/P/PE/010)

46 824 600 78 041 000

141

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

PolandKrakow Plaszow II, Sew agetreat ment plant(2000/PL/16/P/PE/012)

55 633 200 79 476 000

PolandLodz waste water treat ment(phase I) (2000/PL/16/P/PE/013)

22 899 500 45 799 000

PolandPoznan waste water treat mentand water sup ply (2000/PL/16/P/PE/015)

59 508 000 104 400 000

PolandWater qual ity improve ment inSzczecin (stage I) (2000/PL/16/P/PE/016-17)

30 622 020 46 397 000

PolandWroclaw solid waste treat ment(stage I) (2000/PL/16/P/PE/018)

13 465 320 20 402 000

PolandWar saw waste water treat ment(phase I) (2000/PL/16/P/PE/020)

27 457 300 42 242 000

Poland Suwalki water qual ity improve -ment (2000/PL/16/P/PE/021)

6 234 000 12 468 000

Poland Wroclaw col lec tors/water sup ply n.a. n.a.

Poland Olsztyn: mod erni sa tion wastewater treat ment plant

n.a. n.a.

Poland Bialystok water qual ity improve -ment (2001/PL/16/P/PE/024)

10 256 960 18 316 000

PolandvRybnik waste water col lec tionsys tem(2001/PL/16/P/PE/025)

71 321 600 111 440 000

PolandTech ni cal assis tance for prep a ra -tion of envi ron men tal pro jects(2000/PL/16/P/PA/003)

3 412 500 4 550 000

142

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Poland

Con struc tion of A4 Motor waySec tion KA4E Kleszczów –Sosnica KM 296+600 to KM 315 + 700 (2000/PL/16/P/PT/001)

84 211 500 112 282 000

Poland

Mod erni sa tion of the E-20 Rail -way Line on Sec tion MinskMazowiecki – Siedlce(2000/PL/16/P/PT/002)

93 446 719 124 595 625

Poland

Mod erni sa tion of the E-20 Rail -way Line on sec tion Rzepin –State Bor der(2000/PL/16/P/PT/003)

17 719 860 23 626 480

Poland

National road No 717 Rein force -ment of the sur face pave ment ofthe sec tion Sochaczew – Grójec(2000/PL/16/P/PT/004)National road No 717 Rein force mentof the sur face pave ment of thesec tion Sochaczew – Grójec (2000/PL/16/P/PT/004)

24 570 750 32 761 000

Poland

Pave ment Strengthening of theNational Road No. 7Gdansk-Warszawa-Chy ne (viaBaltica cor ri dor I) sec tion fromGdansk bound ary to Jazowa km6+330 to km 48+465 plus thebridge over Vistula River inKiezmark reha bil i ta tion(2000/PL/16/P/PT/007)

62 124 000 82 832 000

Poland

Pave ment strength en ing of stateroad No. 4Kraków-Tarnów-Rzeszów-Korczowa to carry the traf fic of 115kN /axle(2000/PL/16/P/PT/008)

46 674 750 62 233 000

143

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

PolandRecon struc tion of A4 Express -way, sec tion Krzywa - Wroclaw(2001/PL/16/P/PT/009)

189 525 000 252 700 000

Poland

Mod erni sa tion of the E-30 rail -way line on the sec tionWegliniec-Legnica(2001/PL/16/P/PT/013)

92 837 250 123 783 000

PolandMod erni sa tion of the Poznan railnode (E-20 rail way) (2001/PL/16/P/PT/014)

50 579 670 67 439 560

Poland

Improve ment of the rail wayinfra struc ture and liq ui da tion ofoper a tional bot tle necks(2001/PL/16/P/PT/015)

83 250 000 111 000 000

Poland

(1) Training in Pro ject Man age -ment for the road infra struc tureser vices and Min is try of Trans -port and Mar i time Econ omystaff.(2) Training in Pro ject Man age -ment for the rail infra struc tureser vices(2000/PL/16/P/PA/001)

400 000 400 000

Poland

Pre-feasibility study for the sus -tain able devel op ment of the War -saw Trans port Node incon nec tion with Pan-EuropeanCor ri dors I, II and VI(2000/PL/16/P/PA/002)

705 000 940 000

Poland

Tech ni cal Assis tance for pro jectprep a ra tion for mod erni sa tion ofE-65 rail way line sec tion War saw- Dzialdowo-Gdynia(2001/PL/16/P/PA/005)

5 960 000 14 900 000

144

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Roma niaPiatra Neamt Waste Man age -ment Programme(2000/RO/16/P/PE/001)

10 385 000 13 846 000

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion of Sew er age Net -work and Wastewater Treat mentFacil ities in order to pro tect theRiver Dan ube at Craiova City (2000/RO/16/P/PE/002)

52 783 500 70 378 000

Roma niaConstanta Sew er age and WastewaterTreat ment Reha bil i ta tion (2000/RO/16/P/PE/003)

72 417 000 96 557 000

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion of WastewaterTreat ment Tech nol ogy and Sew -er age Improve ments for the Pop -u la tion of Timisoara City (2000/RO/16/P/PE/004)

34 136 800 48 080 000

Roma niaUpgrading the Water andWastewater Sys tem in Pascani(2000/RO/16/P/PE/005)

12 196 500 16 262 000

Roma nia

Upgrading the water and wastewatersys tem in Iasi in order to com ply with the Euro pean stan dards for waterqual ity and envi ron men tal pro tec tion (2000/RO/16/P/PE/006)

38 533 500 51 378 000

Roma nia Brasov: treat ment of drink ingwater and wastewater

n.a. n.a.

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion and Mod erni sa -tion of the Water Sup ply andSew er age Sys tem for the area ofCluj (2000/RO/16/P/PE/008)

35 066 850 46 755 800

Roma nia

Danutoni Wastewater Treat ment Plant Exten sion – Bio log i calStage located in Jiu Val ley(2000/RO/16/P/PE/009)

7 260 000 9 680 000

145

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Romania

Sew er age reha bil i ta tion andexten sion and con struc tion ofwastewater treat ment facil i ties inthe munic i pal ity of Braila(2000/RO/16/P/PE/010)

44 908 050 59 877 400

Roma nia

Wastewater treat ment in the Cityof Arad: Reha bil i ta tion ofWastewater Treat ment Facil itiesin order to pro tect the RiverMures(2000/RO/16/P/PE/011)

13 500 000 18 000 000

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion of the sew er agenet work and wastewater treat -ment plant in Focsani (2000/RO/16/P/PE/012)

11 748 610 15 876 500

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion of the Sew er ageNet work and Wastewater Treat -ment Plant in Oradea located inthe County of Bihor(2000/RO/16/P/PE/013)

16 734 200 23 906 000

Roma nia

Inte grated Munic i pal WasteMan age ment Sys tem in RamnicuValcea(2001/RO/16/P/PE/014)

11 004 825 14 673 100

Roma nia

Reha bil i ta tion of drink ing watersup ply and wastewater col lec tionand treat ment for the City ofTargu Mures(2001/RO/16/P/PE/015)

20 932 050 27 909 400

Roma nia

Tech ni cal assis tance for the prep -a ra tion of the pro ject “Com ple -tion and Upgrading of theBucha rest Wastewater Treat ment Plant”(2000/RO/16/P/PA/001)

1 357 500 1 810 000

146

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Roma nia

Rail way: Reha bil i ta tion of theBucha rest - Baneasa – Fetesti sec -tions on the Bucha rest -Constanta rail way line in Roma -nia (2000/RO/16/P/PT/001)

231 730 000 308 970 000

Roma nia

Road: Widening to four lanes ofsec tions of national road No 5from Bucha rest to Giurgiu(2000/RO/16/P/PT/002)

43 430 000 57 910 000

Roma nia

Motor way: Con struc tion andreha bil i ta tion of sec tions 4 and 5of the Bucha rest – CernavodaMotor way(2000/RO/16/P/PT/003)

71 720 000 95 620 000

Roma nia

Road net work: reha bil i ta tion ofthe Craiova - Drobeta TurnuSeverin sec tion of High way 6 (1st phase of the Craiova – Lugojlink) (2000/RO/16/P/PT/004)

87 752 028 117 002 705

Roma niaRoad net work: con struc tion of aring road to by-pass the town ofSibiu (2001/RO/16/P/PT/005)

67 890 750 90 521 000

Roma nia

Road net work: reha bil i ta tion ofthe Drobeta Turnu Severin -Lugoj sec tion of national high -way 6 (sec ond phase of theCraiova - Lugoj link) (2001/RO/16/P/PT/006

138 011 625 184 015 500

Roma nia

Road net work: Tech ni cal assis tancefor res to ra tion of the Drobeta TurnuSeverin - Lugoj sec tion of nationalhigh way 6 and related stud ies (2ndphase of the Craiova - Lugoj part) inRoma nia (2000/RO/16/P/PA/002)

1 125 000 1 500 000

147

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Roma nia

Tech ni cal assis tance for res to ra -tion of the rail way line: Hun gar -ian bor der - Curtici - Arad - Deva- Simeria on the trans-Europeantrans port cor ri dor no IV inRoma nia and related stud ies(2001/RO/16/P/PA/008)

600 000 800 000

Roma nia Con struc tion of motor way bypassescor ri dor IV

n.a. n.a.

SlovakiaTrencín Right Bank WastewaterTreat ment(2000/SK/16/P/PE/001)

3 968 366 7 936 732

Slovakia

Exten sion of Wastewater Treat -ment Plant for Urban Agglom er -a tion of Nitra (2000/SK/16/P/PE/002)

5 177 100 10 354 200

SlovakiaWastewater Dis posal Sys tem inBanská Bystrica (2000/SK/16/P/PE/003)

22 734 334 45 468 667

SlovakiaWastewater pro ject in the Munic -i pal ity of Komárno (2000/SK/16/P/PE/004)

4 021 850 8 043 700

Slovakia

Recon struc tion and exten sion ofthe waste water treat ment plantin Zvolen(2001/SK/16/P/PE/005)

5 483 525 10 967 050

Slovakia

Sew er age and Wastewater Treat -ment in the town Mar tin and theregion Dolný Turiec (2001/SK/16/P/PE/007)

6 024 881 12 295 676

SlovakiaTech ni cal assis tance for the prep -a ra tion of six envi ron ment pro -jects (2000/SK/16/P/PA/001)

953 820 1 271 760

148

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Slovakia

Rail way: Mod erni sa tion of theRail Track Bratislava Raca -Trnava (Sec tion: Bratislava Raca– Senkvice)(2000/SK/16/P/PT/001)

38 566 500 51 422 000

Slovakia

Con struc tion of D 61 Motor way,Sec tion Vienna Road – RiverportBridge in Bratislava(2001/SK/16/P/PT/002)

27 149 200 52 210 000

Slovakia

Mod erni sa tion of the Rail TrackŠenkvice-Cífer and Sta tionsRaca-Trnava(2001/SK/16/P/PT/003)

58 429 500 116 859 000

SloveniaWaste Water Treat ment Plantlocated in Celje(2000/SI/16/P/PE/001)

8 844 407 14 740 679

Slovenia

Sew er age Sys tem and Cen tralWaste Water Treat ment Plant inLendava(2000/SI/16/P/PE/002)

5 124 686 11 647 014

SloveniaSus tain able Water Sup ply ofTrnovsko- Banjška Pla teau(2000/SI/16/P/PE/004)

2 561 084 5 122 168

Slovenia Sew er age sys tem and cen tralwaste water

n.a. n.a.

SloveniaWaste Water Treat ment Plantlocated in Slovenj Gradec(2000/SI/16/P/PE/005)

4 509 008 9 018 016

Slovenia

Waste Man age ment Cen tre“Dolenjska”- Stage I - located inNovo Mesto(2000/SI/16/P/PE/006)

4 971 500 9 943 000

149

ISPA Projects

Coun try Pro ject ti tle and num ber ISPAgrant

(Euro)

To tal el i -gi ble cost

(Euro)

Slovenia

Tech ni cal assis tance: car ry ing out ofstud ies on sew age and water treat -ment in the basin of the Sava river(2000/SI/16/P/PA/001)

225 000 300 000

Slovenia

Rail way line: Mod erni sa tion ofthe “Krizni vrh” stretch of theline (563+346 km to 564+860km), as part of renewal of the sec -tion between Poljcane andSlovenska Bistrica, which formspart of the Zidani Most-Mariborline (2000/SI/16/P/PT/001)

9 375 000 12 500 000

Slovenia

Mod erni sa tion of sig nal ling andsafety equip ment on the Divaca -Koper rail way line(2001/SI/16/P/PT/002)

8 415 300 16 830 600

Slovenia Imple men ta tion of GSM-R andERTLS/ETCS

n.a. n.a.

TOTAL 3 701 258 928 5 670 517 515

In for ma tion source: http: //europa.eu.int /comm /re gional_pol icy /funds /ispa/projec_en.htm (as of March 13, 2002)

n.a. – in for ma tion not avail able

150

ISPA Projects

Addresses of the Projects Partners

Bul garia:Anelia StefanowaZa Zemiata (CEE Bankwatch Net work)P.O. Box 975, So fia 1000, Bul gariaTel/fax: +359 2 980 41 09Email: anelias@bankwatch.org

Czech Re pub lic:Pavel PribylHnuti Duha (FoE Czech Rep./CEE Bankwatch Net work)Lublanska 18, 120 00 Praha 2, Czech Rep.Tel: 420 2 225 13 859, fax: +420 2 225 18 319Email: pavel.pribyl@ecn.cz

Es to nia:Peep MardisteFriends of the Earth-Estonia/CEE Bankwatch Net workP.O. Box 318, 50002 Tartu, Es to niaTel: +372 7 422532, fax: +372 7 422084Email: pepe@ut.ee

Hun gary:Teodora DonszETK (CEE Bankwatch Net work)P.O. Box 123 1450 Bu da pest, Hun garyTel: +36 1 217 08 03, fax: +36 1 216 72 95Email: ddori@zpok.hu

151

Addresses of the Project Partners

Istvan FarkasNa tional So ci ety of Con ser va tion ists - FoE Hun garyP.O. Box 123 1450 Bu da pest, Hun garyTel: +36 1 216 72 97 fax: +36 1 216 72 95Email: ifarkas@zpok.hu

Latvia:Alda OzolaVAK (FoE Lat via)Audeju 719 Riga, LV 1966, Lat viaEmail: alda@lanet.lv

Lith u a nia:Linas VainiusAtgaja Com mu nity (FoE Lith u a nia/CEE Bankwatch Net work)P.O. Box 156, LT-3000 Kaunas, Lith u a nia Tel: +370 7 20 72 50, fax: +370 7 20 92 74Email: linas@atgaja.ot.lt

Po land:Andrzej GulaIGTR, (CEE Bankwatch Net work)Krowoderska 5/3, 31-141 Krakow, Po landTel/fax: +48 12 429 11 01, tel: +48 12 430 03 20Email: andrzejg@bankwatch.org

Slovak Republic:Hel ena ZamkovskaCEPA (FoE Slovakia/CEE Bankwatch Net work) Ponicka Huta 65, 976 33 Poniky, SlovakiaTel/fax: +421 88 4193324

152

Addresses of the Project Partners

Email: zamkovska@changenet.sk

Brussels of fice: Magda StoczkiewiczFriends of the Earth Eu rope/CEE Bankwatch Net work29, rue Blanche, 1060 Brussels, Bel giumtel: +32 2 542 01 80, fax: +32 2 537 55 96

Am ster dam of fice: tel +31 20 622 13 69, fax: +31 20 639 21 81Email: magdas@foeeurope.org

153

Addresses of the Project Partners