WRITTEN QUESTION P-2605/99 by Chris Davies (ELDR) to the Commission. Structural Funds 2000-2005/7 ‐ Objective 1, Merseyside.
C 280 E/80 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 3. 10. 2000 (2000/C 280 E/082) WRITTEN QUESTION P-2605/99 by Chris Davies (ELDR) to the Commission (22 December 1999) Subject: Structural Funds 2000-2005/7 ü Objective 1, Merseyside With the approval of the British Government a bid for the next Merseyside Objective 1 programme has been submitted to the Commission which includes a financial table indicating that the programme will be supported by equal contributions from EU grants and matching public funding. 1. Is it the Commissionís understanding that, by giving its approval to the bid, the British Government has indicated that it intends to ensure that matching funding from within Britain is provided on at least a pound for pound basis with the European Union? 2. What sanctions would be open to the Commission were it to become evident that the British Government did not intend to provide matching funding on this basis? 3. Have such sanctions been applied to any Member State in past years? Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission (20 January 2000) 1. The financial schedule in the draft single programming document (SPD) for the region of Merseyside, as submitted by the United Kingdom authorities for the period 2000-2006, cites a total volume of EUR 3 297,9 million broken down as follows: EU Structural Funds UK public contribution Private-sector contribution In million euro 1 333,3 1 333,3 631,3 Share (%) 40 40 20 If this schedule remains unchanged in the final version of the SPD, the UK Government will be committing itself to financing the public-sector part of the plan on a pound-for-pound basis with the Communityís Structural Funds. 2. The Community contribution will depend directly on the expenditure declared by the UK authorities. If the financial commitment originally made is not forthcoming, an automatic penalty is built in since the Community contribution is based on this declared expenditure in accordance with the relative shares laid down in the financial schedule. 3. This is the same mechanism as applies to all other Member States. (2000/C 280 E/083) WRITTEN QUESTION E-2612/99 by Brigitte Langenhagen (PPE-DE) to the Commission Subject: More stringent intervention criteria for cereals (12 January 2000) The moisture content is to be reduced once again from 15 % to 14,5 %. For decades the limit value was 16 %. In our maritime coastal climate with permanently high air humidity, under normal weather conditions the 16 % limit is possible only on a few days in Summer in the harvesting period. A glance at the harvesting conditions in previous years shows that under these conditions cereals could only have been sold in exceptional Summers. In the last seven years it would only have been possible to market the harvested crop on three occasions without artificial drying