The EC welcomes Latvia’s performance in ESF acquisition and discusses issues regarding the next period
Head of the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate-General (DG) for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion Andriana Sukova-Tosheva and the representatives of the DG met with the representatives of the Ministry of Finance in the annual meeting on the implementation of the European Social Fund (ESF) co-financed activities in the programming period 2007-2013 and welcomed Latvia’s performance in the ESF acquisition, as well as discussed the most topical issues regarding the programming period 2014-2020.
“The EC welcomes the considerable support provided to the employment promotion in Latvia within the framework of European Social Fund co-financed activities, for example, in September redistribution of 37 million lats for the implementation of active labour market policy measures will provide a possibility to continue successful implementation of employment measures also in 2012-2013,” emphasised Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance on EU Funds Issues Aleksandrs Antonovs.
According to data as of end-September, Latvia constantly shows the best results among EU Member States – ESF project agreements have been concluded in amount of 87.9% of total ESF contribution, payment to beneficiaries for the implementation of projects have been made in amount of 50% of total ESF contribution, as well as the state budget has already received from the EC 56% of the ESF contribution.
During the meeting head of the EU funds Managing Authority A.Antonovs emphasised the important role of the ESF is in improving the social-economic situation in Latvia and said that it is important for Latvia next year to receive the EU financing at least at the same level as in 2007-2013 period, at the same time ensuring simplified implementation system, balanced control requirements and a result-based approach to spend less administrative resources during the process focusing more on the real added value from the EU funding.
During the meeting EC representatives admitted that they were satisfied with the fact that as a result of EC audits conducted in Latvia serious problems with the implementation of ESF activities were not found, and serious irregularities in the Latvian EU funds management and control system were not identified. EC representatives were particularly satisfied with the measures performed by Latvia to strengthen control environment to prevent procurement violations.
The EC also drew attention to the need to perform measures to evaluate usefulness and usability of ESF co-financed studies, as well as proposed to decide on the efficient use of remaining ESF financing for similar studies.
Finally the representatives of the MoF and the EC discussed topical issues related to the programming period 2014-2020, emphasising the need to focus on the Cohesion Policy support in the future, pay more attention to achievable results and reduce the number of audits. Thus simplification of Cohesion Policy implementation provisions would be promoted.
In addition topical activities planned at nation level were discussed in order to organize discussion on the proposals published by the EC in October, 2011 for the EU funds implementation after 2013. Parties agreed on active and constructive cooperation, including at informal level.
Information prepared by:
Agnese Beļkeviča
MoF Communication Division
Phone 67083938
Agnese.Belkevica@fm.gov.lv
