Cohesion – Structural Funds

On 18 December 2003 the negotiations on the strategy for the implementation of structural funds in the Czech Republic for the period 2004 to 2006 were successfully concluded. The Czech Republic may benefit from the amount of EUR 1,525 billion. The strategy adopted in the Czech Republic will be implemented through five Operational Programmes and a Single Programming Document for the Prague region (following Objective 2).

The Treaty of Accession provides that the acceding countries may benefit from the eligibility of expenditure under structural funds as of 1st January 2004 where all the conditions laid down in the structural funds and Cohesion Fund regulations are fulfilled. The conditions involve compliance with the Community legislation in the areas of regional policy, public procurement, environmental protection, financial management and control, equal opportunities, etc. Theoretically, the costs of individual projects spent at the beginning of this year should qualify for contribution from the EC funds. However, there are opinions that the only refundable costs will be those incurred after approval the application has been approved or after the agreement with the funding recipient has been concluded.

The individual ministries are now preparing the so-called program supplement to the relevant manuals, which stipulate the terms and conditions, procedures for and types of potential projects, selection criteria, groups of final recipients, etc. Since the Czech Republic will join the European Union in less than three months and the final versions of operational programs or individual program documents are yet to be published, the entire process is delayed and it is very likely that the announcement of individual programs will be postponed.