EU support utilisation procedures modified2012. március 2.
As a result of the legal amendments published in the Hungarian Official Journal, the deadlines for project planning, starting and management will be further reduced. The new solutions will offer bidders another set of facilities and faster access to funding.
The assessment of the situation after the new government came into power revealed that significant EU development funds might remain unused by the end of the programming period unless the payment procedure significantly speeded up. In order to pay the still available 5,500 billion forints in the coming years, there is a need to take steps which will produce spectacular results already in the short run. As is shown by the figures, the measures introduced so far have had such effects, since the amount of support paid on a weekly basis is nearly four times the level when the new government came into power.
The intention to further accelerate payments required the amendment of “Government Decree 4/2011 (28 January) on the regime of utilising support from the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund in the 2007-2013 programming period”.
The latest modifications follow previous trends by focussing on both institutions and beneficiaries, i.e. on the problems arising from the heavy workload of officials and the low number of invoices. By applying service providing public administration in the area of EU tenders, cooperation between the state and project hosts will become a priority. The new solutions will offer bidders another set of facilities and faster access to funding.
The new rules will enable beneficiaries to additional support subject to certain criteria in the wake of the VAT increase of January, for smooth project implementation.
By making what is called supplier financing and supplier advance payment more frequent, beneficiaries will only have to provide their own funds rather than the overall project costs, since the settlement of accounts regarding implementation will be continuous as projects progress.
The time for making grant decisions will be shorter. In the future, the decision-making process will have to be closed within 30 days of receipt of the project proposal, with only one extension for another 15 days as necessary. Also, the procedural deadlines for public procurements will be significantly shortened. This will be achieved by simultaneously implementing the inspection activities which have traditionally been performed by managing bodies and the National Development Agency in succession.
Legal remedy procedures will be also simplified. The deadline for submission of complaints is now more clearly regulated. Legal security will further be enhanced. Another novelty is that legal remedy will also be available in cases where the inspection authority detects any irregularity.
With the digitisation of tender processes, an average of 8 days may be saved for an average tender operation.
The additional changes which will help speed up payments include:
Planning and launching the support facilities will be quicker. From now on, preparing and announcing projects must be done within no more than 30 days.
The legal amendments will remove minor changes involving specific facilities from the scope of Government decisions (e.g. certain regroupings within priorities) to the authority of ministers, for faster implementation.
In order to prevent the loss of funds, project monitoring will be further strengthened. In the case of projects running the risk of failure, the National Development Agency may request the preparation of a unique and traceable action plan based on a risk analysis. Before a partial withdrawal from the grant contract or the revocation of the grant deed, the National Development Agency may ask for or adopt certain measures, with a simultaneous proposal for the amendment of the grant contract (including the right to reduce project management costs, make their payment subject to conditions or to appoint a project supervisor).
By operating the project doctoring scheme, which is a new task of the National Development Agency, projects that play a key role in terms of the national economy but struggle with administrative, payment and management problems will be implemented in a controlled manner with the support of special consultants. Project supervisors are responsible for ensuring the conditions of successful project implementation by eliminating obstacles and accelerating payments in cases where there is a danger of missing the deadlines.
The new rules allow for the introduction of reserve support facilities. Tender announcements and priority projects classified as reserve will be activated by deleting their action plan status and validating them as support facilities.
Source: National Development Agency