Approved EU fund projects amount to 55% of the financing allocated to Latvia
On Tuesday, May 18, at the sitting of the Cabinet of Ministers (CoM) the Ministry of Finance (MoF) informed the government about the acquisition of the European Union (EU) funds by May 1, 2010. The MoF reported that approved EU fund projects amount to 1.8 billion lats or 55% of the financing allocated to Latvia.
By the end-April project implementation contracts were signed in amount of 1.5 billion lats or 48% of the financing allocated to Latvia; however the European Commission reimbursements were 18.8%, therefore Latvia is still one of leaders (3rd place) among 12 new EU Member States in terms of the EC reimbursements.
The MoF also reminded that there are 417 million lats planned in the state budget 2010 for the implementation of EU fund projects and that this financing does not cover the whole amount necessary to implement all projects. To launch and continue implementation of all projects according to the schedule additional state budget resources are necessary. The government and MoF works in several directions to solve the problem of insufficient finances.
Therefore the fiscal supervision and control over the timely acquisition of EU funds and timely use of planned budget financing (execution of budget expenditure and revenue plan) have been tightened considerably. The supervision and control measures are aimed at promotion of more rapid acquisition of the financing making it possible to declare the spend finances to the EC as soon as possible and to get them back to the state budget, as well as at more operative identification of the fields exposed to risk of unused budget resources to ensure timely redistribution of these resources to the sectors where the financing is really necessary.
At the same time measures have been performed allowing ministries to use their budget resources in a more elastic manner and make additional redistributions in cases of savings in projects or activities under their responsibility which could be used in other projects or activities.
More detailed information about the indicators concerning the EU funds acquisition is available on the 
EU funds home page.
Information prepared by:
Agnese Beļkeviča
Communication Division of the MoF
Phone: +371 67083938
Agnese.Belkevica@fm.gov.lv
