WRITTEN QUESTION No. 457/98 by José BARROS MOURA to the Commission. Community funding of hydraulic projects in Spain
19. 11. 98 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 354/7 For travellers destined for the Canary Islands, this means that, by virtue of exportation duty-free sales may continue after 30 June 1999. On return, the traveller shall respect the restrictions in terms of travellersí allowances in the same way as any third country traveller entering the Community. (1) OJ L 145, 13. 6. 1977. (2) OJ L 76, 23. 3. 1992. (98/C 354/09) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0457/98 by Jose· Barros Moura (PSE) to the Commission (27 February 1998) Subject: Community funding of hydraulic projects in Spain In reply to my Written Question P-4150/97 (1) on the above subject, Mrs Wulf-Mathies sent me the Montgomery Watson report, which contains almost 200 pages plus annexes but which in my opinion provides an inadequate answer to my question, since there are a number of points which are not covered. While thanking the Commissioner for her kindness, I should therefore like to put the following specific questions: 1. Were funding conditions identical to those applying to the Alqueva project laid down for any of the programmes or projects covered by my question? 2. If not, what are the reasons for this differentiation? (1) OJ C 187, 16. 6. 1998, p. 131. Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (6 April 1998) No project in Spain funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is similar or comparable 1. to the Alqueva project in size or nature. The same is true of projects funded by the Cohesion Fund. The conditions applied to the part-funding of the Alqueva project were due to its particular size 2. (a Community contribution of over ECU 300 million). This scale raised specific problems in terms of the environment, the water supply and economic development, and made coordinating its monitoring difficult. (98/C 354/10) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0478/98 by Richard Howitt (PSE) to the Commission (27 February 1998) Subject: Quotas for specific actions within structural fund programmes To what extent does the Commission regard the financial tables included in agreed Single Programming Documents (SPDs) as fixed, and to what extent does it encourage flexibility in Member States by accepting them as indicative only? In addition, how far in advance does the Commission prepare quotas for overall amounts to be devoted to specific actions, which are then implemented through SPDs, and to what extent does it allow distribution to be agreed regionally, only subsequently compiling overall Europe-wide totals? Does the Commission plan any shift in the balance of its approach in this respect, with greater or lesser use of Europe-wide quotas for the new structural fund programming period 1999-2006?