WRITTEN QUESTION No. 4055/98 by Roy PERRY to the Commission. Raphael Programme
C 207/162 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 21. 7. 1999 Between the beginning of 1997 and April 1998, there was no technical secretariat to perform advance technical examinations. Staff shortages meant that it was only possible to keep operational activities going. Once tender procedures to select experts had been concluded in a manner guaranteeing the requisite transparency, a new technical secretariat started work in April 1998 on tackling the payment backlog by issuing requests for missing supporting evidence to bring about compliance with the terms of the contracts. Responses are being received from the partners involved. The financial management arrangements for payments set up in September 1998 has been working; the backlog is being absorbed, and the partners are once again being helped and supervised in a way which will ensure that this programme, widely recognised as extremely useful, runs fluidly and efficiently. (1999/C 207/224) WRITTEN QUESTION P-4055/98 by Roy Perry (PPE) to the Commission (4 January 1999) Subject: Raphael Programme With regard to the Raphael Programme’s call for proposals in 1998: 1. How many applications were made? 2. How many of these applications were submitted to the independent jury? 3. On what criteria were decisions made to submit applications to the independent jury and who took these decisions? 4. Who were the successful applicants? 5. On what criteria were the successful applicants chosen? Answer given by Mr Oreja on behalf of the Commission (15 February 1999) In response to the call for proposals published in the Official Journal (1), 490 applications were received 1. for the Raphael Programme in 1998. Taking all of the actions together, requests for financial assistance amounted to some EUR 56 million. The 180 applications that passed the formal pre-selection procedure were submitted to a group of 2. independent experts. 3. The formal pre-selection procedure is carried out by the Commission on the basis of the eligibility criteria specified in the call for proposals. These relate, for example, to partnership (the involvement in the project of partners from at least three Member States), the cultural heritage involved (Action I) (sites distributed over at least three Member States combining similar typology/technique of construction and/or similar historical or architectural context), financing (ability to raise funds to match the Community contribution, which may not exceed 50 % of the total cost of the project), compliance with financial ceilings, deadlines for completion and topics specified in the call for proposals, and deadline for submission of the application. In the end 75 projects were selected to receive Community support in the 1998 operation. The list of 4. successful applications is being sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat. 5. The group of experts assesses the projects on the basis of merit and their European significance. Among the factors taken into account are the importance of the heritage site involved, the innovative measures planned in terms of conservation or restoration, the transfer of knowledge between operators and development of new techniques in the heritage field prompted by the project, the dissemination of the results among professionals, the socioeconomic impact of the project and the extent to which cultural heritage is accessible to the public. (1) OJ C 97, 31. 3. 1998