The IPA Monitoring Committee co-chaired by Ms Paola Pampaloni, the acting Director in DG Enlargement of the European Commission and Ms Nevenka Savic, the BiH National IPA Co-ordinator met on 10 September in Sarajevo and discussed 27 on-going and planned projects under the Instrument for Pre-accession (IPA) 2008-2012 programmes. Several of these projects supporting agricultural, small and medium enterprises as well as the tourism industry in BiH had been suspended in June and July as the BiH authorities could not agree on the next steps in their implementation.
The Commission had to cancel the two agriculture projects, previously suspended due to the failure of the authorities in BiH to agree on the structures to channel EU agriculture and rural development assistance (IPARD). The lack of an agreement on the project implementation does not only mean a loss of more than 5 mill Euros of the two cancelled projects but will also prevent the timely set-up of structures to channel future EU funds to BiH rural areas.
While the EU is fully committed to assist BiH to move down its EU path, including financial support through IPA funds, it must also ensure that funds provided by tax payers from EU Member States are used effectively.
The Commission has tried for several years without success to facilitate an agreement among the BiH authorities on the IPARD structures. After acknowledging that there is still no political agreement, these key projects for the development of the rural areas had to be cancelled. The cancellation of these projects underlines the urgency to set up a functional co-ordination mechanism to ensure that BiH and its citizens are able to receive EU pre-accession funds in the future.
With regard to five other projects, the Committee gave BiH until 1 October to come up withan agreement. These are two projects supporting SME and tourism, which had been suspended since 26 July, two planned projects fostering social inclusion and one ongoing project strengthening the National Planning Process.
On a positive front, the Committee welcomed the fact that an important environment project developing a country-wide strategy and investment pipeline was proceeding well after it had been unblocked following the last meeting of the Monitoring Committee in December.
With regard to transport, the BiH authorities presented their agreed position on where to use 14 Mill Euros of IPA funds planned for Corridor Vc (design of the highway section Konjic-Mostar) and therefore avoided the cancellation of the project.
For detailed information on IPA see http://www.europa.ba/Default.aspx?id=15&lang=EN
