Malta is managing to spend a good amount of its allocation of EU funds, at least until now, according to the European commissioner responsible for regional policy, Danuta Hubner.
However, the island's biggest challenge is yet to be faced, as most of the funds dedicated to Malta have to be spent over the coming years, she said.
Ms Hubner gave details about the payments made to each member state last year.
According to Commission statistics, Malta was last year paid a total of €5.38 million in structural funds.
Most of the money, €3.48 million, was paid under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The other payments were made under the European Social Fund (ESF), under the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and under the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIGF) fund.
Ms Hubner said all the new member states appeared well prepared to use the funds and were quickly learning how to manage their allocations.
However, she warned that the biggest portion of funds allocated for the years 2004-2006 have still to be spent.
This applies particularly to Malta, which was allocated a total of €89 million in structural and cohesion funds for this period.
According to EU rules, a member state has to spend its funds committed for a particular year not later than two years after the beginning of the project. If this is not done, the funds will be returned to the EU budget. Addressing the press in Brussels, Commissioner Hubner noted that during last year the Commission managed to commit almost 100 per cent of the money allocated to structural actions and pre-accession programmes.
"It is becoming clear that 2005 has been the best executed budget ever. I am not at all surprised that 2005 has been a particular good year taking into account all the hard work both by the Commission and by the member states," she said.
Ms Hubner said the biggest challenge now was to put in place, within this year, all the necessary mechanisms to let cohesion policy for the period 2007-2013 contribute even more to the economic modernisation process of European regions.
For the period 2007-2013 Malta has been allocated €805 million, although the European Parliament has not yet agreed to the new EU financial perspective.