The government has named an inter-ministerial monitoring group which will oversee the use of money provided through what is called the Schengen source - grants awarded between 2004 and 2006 to the EU newcomers on the bloc's new external border. Head of the Government Office for European Affairs (SVEZ), Marcel Koprol, has been named chairman.
The board will review monitoring reports, propose concrete measures for the achievement of programming objectives and put forward recommendations for improvements, SVEZ said in Thursday's press release.
The money for beefing up security on the external border was agreed at the conclusion of membership negotiations in December 2002, when precise sums for individual countries were set. It was awarded to Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
In 2004 Slovenia is entitled to EUR 35.64m in grants, and EUR 35.63m each in 2005 and 2006. This represents about 40 percent of all expenses that Slovenia expects to incur in the process of setting up the external border.
Slovenia has notified the European Commission that it would use the Extended Decentralised Implementation System (EDIS) in phasing this money. In March the Commission will examine the management and oversight system, by which time Slovenia must prepare appropriate reports.
In addition to these grants, Slovenia received some EUR 51m in Phare pre-accession aid from 1997 onwards. The money was used for the construction of border control points, purchase of equipment and training of security and customs officials.
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