Government agreed on occasional extension of EU structural fund project implementation term
„To acquire as much financing from structural funds for 2004-2006 as possible, today, May 20, government supported my proposal that it is possible to prolong implementation term by 2 months – till October 31 – only for projects with financing over 500 000 lats and refunding within the project exceeding 200 000 lats,” informed the Minister for Special Assignments for Administration of European Union Funds Normunds Broks (TB/LNNK).
„However, it is important to understand that this extension is an occasional activity – the term will not be prolonged anymore – and it will refer to big projects in terms of financing. It is the last limit for Latvia to comply with deadlines set by the European Commission,” underlined Broks. The above mentioned big projects shall comply with 2 additional conditions which could hinder timely implementation of projects, i.e., additional financing is allocated to the project after July 1, 2007 or the project itself was approved only on July 1, 2007.
The Cabinet of Ministers also stated that extension of EU structural fund project implementation in programming period 2004-2006 shall be decided by the second level intermediate body or aid scheme manager (agency subordinated to the ministry which approved the project and performs evaluation and supervision of its implementation) after receipt of positive decision from the first level intermediate body.
It was already announced that the EU structural fund financing acquisition principle N+2 set by the European Commission (EC) foresees that acquisition of EU structural fund financing for 2004-2006 shall be completed in 2008 – paying structural financing for project implementers till August 31 and accordingly stating payments to EC and recovering the financing to Latvia’s state budget till December 31.
Lita Kokale
Ministry of Finance
EU Funds Department
PR Division
Phone: +371 67083880; +371 2 6469946
Lita.Kokale@fm.gov.lv
