Slovenia Greatly Improves EU Fund Drawing Capacity
Slovenia has greatly improved its capabilities to draw money from EU cohesion funds in 2005, becoming one of the most successful members of the bloc in doing so, Local Government and Regional Policy Minister Ivan Zagar told the press on Monday.
Out of the SIT 67.5bn (EUR 281m) which were tendered out (representing 86% of all available funds), some SIT 63.1bn (EUR 263m) were allocated by the end of 2005, Zagar said.
While at the end of 2004 Slovenia did not send any requests for reimbursements to the European Commission, by the end of 2005 the number of such requests totaled SIT 11.8bn (EUR 49.25m), he added.
Moreover, while only 11% of all contracts had been signed in 2004, the number increased to 58% by the end of last year.
As the government has already adopted financial measures to optimise the drawing of the funds, "we believe that Slovenia could use up all the available EU funds by the end of the year," Zagar explained.
In the current EU budget framework Slovenia is treated as a single cohesion region and will remain as such in the 2007-2013 financial perspectives as well.
However, the country is already negotiating with the EU on the country being treated as two cohesion regions in the next EU budget.
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