Structural Fund. 5th annual 1993 Report

OBJECTIVE: to present the activities of the Structural Funds, the implementation of their budgetary resources and their efforts to achieve the priority objectives of the 1988 reform. 1993 was the last year of the 1989-1993 five-year programming period and during it all the Structural Fund regulations which will apply to the new programming period (1994-1998) were revised. CONTENT: in presenting its fifth annual report on the implementation of the Structural Funds, the Commission found that all appropriations had been satisfactorily implemented. In fact, the Community was able to commit all the planned appropriations during the 1989-1993 period. These commitments were allocated to interventions under national initiatives (approx. 89%), programmes under Community initiatives (just under 9%) and transitional and innovative measures (just over 2%). The overall distribution between the funds was more or less as planned when the CSF were set up, with the final figures as follows: ERDF (46.7%), ESF (35%), EAGGF-Agriculture (18%), EAGGF-Fisheries (0.3%). The commitments were therefore fully in keeping with the guidelines laid down in the regulations. Fund appropriations under the CSF for the benefit of Objective 1 regions (excluding the new LΣnder) totalled 64.8% for the period as a whole, compared with 11.4% for industrial regions in decline (Objective 2), 13.3% for Objectives 3 and 4 (long-term unemployment and unemployment among the young), 5.9% for adjusting agricultural structures (Objective 5a) and 4.6% for rural areas. As far as Community programmes and initiatives are concerned, commitments under Objective 1 totalled 72%. The distribution between the objectives was more diversified, with appropriations allocated to projects serving several objectives (e.g. INTERREG). Having presented the initial results for the 1989-1993 reform period and explained how the operating principles of the funds were applied during this period, the report summarises the activities of the funds, by objective and by country, both for the period from 1988 to 1993 as a whole and for 1993. This is followed by a chapter on the implementation of the budget and on how other financial instruments contributed towards the achievements of the Structural Funds, highlighting the controls carried out in the Member States. Finally, the report examines the evaluation of the main productive investment projects implemented over the period, how the opinions of the European Parliament were followed up, especially on the importance of a macro-economic evaluation of the CSF, the role played by the social partners and the need for more flexibility for the ESF by defining strategic priorities better and targeting the measures funded.�