European Funds
The initiatives entrusted by the Spanish Government's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment to Acuamed receive support from the European Union through the contributions from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Cohesion Fund resources.
A way of making Europe
European regional policy aims at the Community level to foster all initiatives helping those regions of a Member State of the Union facing the greatest difficulties to better overcome their disadvantages. The funds administered by the European Union cover a host of areas: training for better adaptation to changes in the job market. They likewise improve regional infrastructure in order to avoid any injustice or population exodus. They help companies become more competitive and allow young people to travel, study and work in other countries. Ultimately they allow the less developed states to achieve an equal footing with the more advanced countries in order to face up to the new challenges of globalisation on a level playing field.
European regional policy has allowed more than 35% of the Union's budget to be transferred. The bulk of this percentage comes from the more prosperous Member States and is redirected to the less privileged regions. This approach favours not only the recipient countries but also those states which make a net contribution to the Community budget, whose companies in turn benefit from substantial opportunities for investment and the transfer of economic and technological knowledge, above all to those regions where certain economic activities have a slower pace of adoption.
Through the Community funds both Spain and other Member States have successfully addressed the shortcomings which they suffered, above all in terms of infrastructure, but also significantly in the public provision of education, healthcare, industrial facilities, urban and environmental services. By way of example, the construction of desalination and waste water treatment plants, solid waste treatment, motorways, highways, high-speed railway lines, ports, airports, industrial estates, technology parks, universities, hospitals, etc., have all been co-funded in Spain with European systems fully based on solidarity.
The Treaty of Rome
In 1957 the States which signed the Treaty of Rome referred in the preamble of the text to the need to "strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions". One year later the two Sectorial Funds were established: the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF). ERDF and extensions.
In the mid-Seventies the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was set up. This marks the true beginning of an active regional policy with the aim of redistributing a part of the contributions of the Member States to the less favoured regions. The measure, along with the expansion of the European Community southwards, through the entry of Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal's EU accession in 1986, served to establish the Community's regional policy. The EU population was growing at a rate of 18% per year, while European GDP was rising by 8%. The richest region was Hamburg, with a level of wealth 180% higher than the European average, while some regions of Greece were only just above 40% of the average level, and Extremadura in Spain stood at around 55%.
The response to this situation came in the form of signature of the Single European Act in 1986. This document established the basis for a true policy of cohesion and defined the contribution of a tranche of the charges levied by the single market to the countries of the South and other less favoured regions. Article 130 B defined the instruments for cohesion finance: the structural funds (ERDF, ESF and EAGGF-Guidance).
1988-1992, the Delors Package
The Brussels European Council (February 1988) reformed the operation of the Solidarity funds, subsequently referred to as "Structural Funds", which were allotted a budget of 68 billion ECUs. The same year, under the European Commission headed by Jacques Delors, the first financial perspectives were established, the so-called Delors I Package, 1988-1992. This period was characterised by growing tensions which impeded the normal operation of the annual budgetary procedure leading to an increasing mismatch between the Community's needs and resources. These successive budgetary crises prompted the Community institutions to adopt by common consent a method to improve the budgetary procedure while also guaranteeing budgetary discipline.
In 1989, with the first multi-annual scheduling period (1989-1993), the sequence for application of the funds was as follows:
- The State presents its Regional Development Plan (RDP) for Objective 1 regions, and Regional Conversion Plans for those covered by Objective 2.
- The Commission responds with the Community Support Framework (CSF).
- Regional and multi-regional operational programmes are developed.
This system was maintained for the period 1994-1999 and 2000-2006, and will also apply to the period 2007-2013. Modifications have nonetheless been subsequently introduced in order to adjust and fine-tune its administration.
1994-1999 Maastricht and the Delors II Package
In 1992, a hugely important year for Spain's international profile (Seville Universal Expo, Barcelona Olympics, Madrid as Capital of Culture), also saw ratification of the European Union Treaty, which entered into force in 1993. Known as the Maastricht Treaty (after the Dutch city where it was signed), it enshrines cohesion as one of the essential objectives of the Union, in parallel with Economic and Monetary Union and the Single Market. It likewise provided for the creation of the Cohesion Fund.
- The main modifications of the Delors II Package compared with the funds covered by the Treaty are: The previous objectives 3 and 4 are merged into one single objective 3: "Integration within the labour market of persons subject to social exclusion".
- A new objective 4 is created to facilitate the adaptation of workers to industrial changes.
In order to provide all European citizens with the same opportunities and equalities in facing up to the challenges involved in the unstoppable phenomenon of globalisation, irrespective of where they live, in a rural or urban, dynamic or crisis-struck area, European regional policy has always pursued the fundamental aim of eliminating any possible disparity. The European Union has attempted and continues to attempt to correct any regional economic imbalance by means of two financial instruments: the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Funds.
The various Structural Funds
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
This fund is intended to correct the main regional imbalances within the EU. The ERDF will contribute to the funding of productive investments allowing for the creation of lasting jobs, infrastructure, the development of the endogenous potential of regions through measures to foster and support local development initiatives and the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Cohesion Fund
The Maastricht Treaty included a decision to create the so-called Cohesion Fund, which would provide financial contributions for projects in the fields of the environment and trans-European transport networks for Member States with a GDP per capita below 90% of the Community average. Such States were also required to have in place a programme leading to compliance with the conditions of nominal economic convergence allowing them to join the single currency.
A fund was created, in principle applicable to Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal, to help achieve the genuine convergence of their economies with what could be considered the Community average, taking into consideration the efforts which these States were required to make in order to successfully fulfil the convergence conditions.
The fund differs in certain aspects from the Structural Funds:
- It is an inter-State fund administered exclusively by the Member States and the Commission, unlike the Structural Funds which are administered by a partnership among the regions, the Member State and the Commission.
- It covers two specific sectors: trans-European networks and the environment, as opposed to the Structural Funds, which have a much broader spectrum of action.
Since its creation in 1993, to assist the four least prosperous Member States of the EU, these funds have accounted for more than 11% of total expenditure in the field of environmental protection, and substantially more than 12% of investment in the transport sector.
Meanwhile, over the period 2000-2006 Spain was the main beneficiary of cohesion funds, receiving more than 60% of the overall total, equivalent to a figure of 11.16 billion euros.
The ten new Member States, along with Greece, Portugal, Spain and, up until late 2003, Ireland, are the beneficiaries of the fund. One third of the Cohesion Fund provision between 2004 and 2006 was set aside for the new Member States.
European Social Fund (ESF)
This is intended to improve the employment prospects of workers within the domestic market and to contribute to an increase in standards of living. The ESF provides funds to facilitate the professional placement of unemployed people at risk of a situation of long-term joblessness, young people and those excluded from the labour market. It also assists workers in processes of adaptation to industrial change and fosters job stability. It furthermore serves to improve educational and training systems.
European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF-Guidance)
This fund is involved in the financing of initiatives intended to accelerate the adaptation of agricultural structures by means of measures to supplement market policy, measures to support agricultural income, to foster the establishment of young farmers, to improve the effectiveness of agricultural operations, marketing, to increase support for farmers and create groupings to improve production conditions. The EAGGF will also finance rural development plans and the adjustment of the least-developed regions through measures to foster sustainable development of the rural environment, including agricultural and forestry structures, conservation and improvements to the natural environment.
Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG)
Structural actions for the improvement and adaptation of structures in the fisheries and aquaculture sector and the marketing of their products. Production structures, both at sea and on land, must be adapted with the aim of:
- creating a sustainable balance between fishery resources and their exploitation.
- strengthening business competitivity.
- improving the supply and value of fishery and aquaculture products.
- contributing to the revitalisation of areas dependent on fishing.
These measures will be supported by the FIFG in the least developed regions (Objective 1), but also in other regions where necessary (0.5% of Structural Fund credits).
