Pre-accession financial assistance for Turkey

PURPOSE: to present a Commission proposal for a Council Regulation concerning pre-accession financial assistance for Turkey. CONTENT: as part of the pre-accesion strategy for Turkey, the European Union has recently taken a number of initiatives with respect to financial assistance to Turkey. The Council has adopted a regulation on the establishment of the Accession Partnership for Turkey and the establishment of a single framework for co-ordinating all sources for EU financial assistance to Turkey for pre-accession (Council Regulation 390/2001/EC). In the Accession Partnership, the priorities and intermediate objectives are divided into two groups i.e. short and medium-term priorities. Following these decisions, Community financial assistance has to be accession driven. As for all other candidate countries, financial assistance has to focus on the priorities identified in the Accession Partnership and elaborated in Turkey's National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis. The proposed Regulation further implements and details this approach. In drawing up this proposal, the established principles and objectives developed for pre-accession assistance to the other candidate countries have as much as possible been taken into account. The new Regulation will contribute to the financing of the Accession Partnership priorities for Turkey. Particular emphasis will be given to cross-border cooperation between Turkey and the European Union, between Turkey and the candidate countries and between Turkey and other countries in the region. Finance will be provided for investment support and institution-building. Financial assistance for the priority actions will be made available through financing decisions taken by the Commission, following an opinion of the Phare Committee consisting of representatives of the Member States. The Committee will be consulted on the basis of a financial proposal, including information on the programmes and/or projects to be implemented. Specific arangements are proposed for operations under EUR 2 Mio.The proposed regulation will be the legal base for the new EU budget line for Turkey. At the same time, the two European strategy regulations will be repealed. The relevant budgetqry appropriations and Turkey's financial allocation under the MEDA programme will be transferred to the new budgetary line. However, Turkey will remain eligible for MEDA financing as far as operations of regional interest are concerned. Against this background, the main provisions of the proposed regulation are the following: - scope of investment; - implementation and suspension of assistance; - participation in contracts and transitional arrangements. With regard to levels of financing, the total indicative allocation for action is EUR 177 million for commitment in 2002. With regard to financial allocations for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, they will be determined in the annual budgetary procedure within the framework of the Financial perspectives.�