WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3499/98 by Arlene McCARTHY to the Commission. The Commission's use of private consultants
21. 7. 1999 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 207/79 Article 6 of Regulation (EC) 803/98 laying down detailed rules for 1998 for the application of Council 2. Regulation (EC) 2275/96 introducing specific measures for live plants and floricultural products (1) stipulates that the list of selected measures is to be drawn up, in particular, on the basis of the coherence of the strategies presented, the merits of the proposed measures, the expected impact of their implementation and the producer groups’ capacity to implement the measures and the guarantees presented as to the groups’ efficiency and representative nature. The Member States are to give preference to measures to be implemented in the territories of several Member States. The Commission will reply directly to the Honourable Member regarding the second part of his second question, since it has only just received the brochure in question. (1) OJ L 115, 17. 4. 1998. (1999/C 207/105) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3499/98 by Arlene McCarthy (PSE) to the Commission (25 November 1998) Subject: The Commission’s use of private consultants As part of the reform of the Structural Funds, the Commission intends to decentralise further the operation of Structural Fund programmes, withdrawing from the day-to-day management of programmes in favour of a stronger Commission ‘policing’ role. During the 1994-1999 programme, how many consultants has the Commission engaged in the administration of the following programmes? What has been the total cost, and what percentage of the programmes allocations does it represent: ; across the EU as a whole, ; across each Objective: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5b and 6 ; and across each Community Initiative? Can the Commission publish the details? Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (26 January 1999) Technical assistance provided under the Structural Funds is to a large extent included in the operational programmes. A limited proportion of the appropriations may also be allocated directly to the Commission. In the former case, the technical assistance is administered directly by the authorities responsible for the programmes and not by the Commission. In the latter case, the assistance is subject to rules and ceilings laid down by the various Regulations governing the Funds. It is broken down by Fund and not by objective, and is mainly used for studies, assessments, information and publicity campaigns and the preparation and monitoring of the operations. It takes various forms, e. g. subsidies, contracts with consultants, specific agreements and framework contracts. The expenditure incurred is published in the annual reports on the Structural Funds. The data for 1994-97 are thus presented by Fund on pages 48 to 51 of the 9th Annual Report on 1997 (1) (English version). New, comprehensive information on the subject has also just been presented by the Commission to Parliament in connection with the consideration by the latter of the charging of expenditure on technical and administrative assistance against the operating appropriations. (1) COM(98) 562 final