A review has placed Malta among the five most efficient member states in allocating EU funds.
According to the review, covering the first 18 months of the roll-out of EU cohesion funds for the period between 2007 and 2013, the Commission found that Malta had already managed to allocate 48.7 per cent of all the funds made available to it for the seven-year financial period, achieving one of the best roll-out rates in the EU.
For the period under review, Malta was allocated a total of €840 million in EU funds and, in the first 18 months of this period, the Maltese authorities have already approved projects worth €409 million.
"We are very pleased that Malta is among the best performers where it comes to the disbursement of EU funds and this should help the island's economy make a significant step forward by the end of this financial perspective," a Commission official said.
Although the projects approved so far have committed €409 million, this does not mean that the money has already been sent to the Maltese coffers and spent in the economy. Under the EU system, full payments are only made by Brussels when a project is completed and upon verification that all procedures have been followed. Some projects, which will run into tens of millions of euros, will also need an additional green light from Brussels before they are initiated in Malta.
The actual physical work follows a laborious bureaucratic process that involves tendering and permit issues, which sometimes slow the implementation of the projects.
According to the Commission report, Malta has already allocated substantial funds to a number of significant projects. These include €57 million for the rebuilding of some main roads, €8 million for a waste treatment and transfer facility in Gozo, €32 million for the restoration of bastions and fortifications and €13 million for the setting up of a Life Sciences Centre. Many of the projects are still in their planning stages and work is expected to gain more ground at the latter part of the year.
The only other EU member states that fared better than Malta so far are Belgium (committing 61 per cent of total allocation), the Netherlands (55.8 per cent) and Ireland (51.8 per cent).
Despite the progress achieved, Malta still needs to allocate another €431 million by the end of 2013, which are then topped-up by funds from Malta's own resources. According to EU rules, the maximum allocation of cohesion funds allowed for a particular project is 85 per cent of the total costs and the other 15 per cent have to come out of national coffers. This means that, in the 2007-2013 period, the total investment in the country will surpass the €1 billion mark.
In its report, the Commission said that, although Malta was doing fine, some issues needed to be fine-tuned in order to address some problems that might cause bottlenecks and delays. These include an improvement in approving operations, a procedure that is quite complicated, the procurement process, which still takes too long as national financial rules do not permit the launching of tenders by contracting authorities without these having secured the funds for the project, and the complicated Mepa permit process that can often take years.
"The delays arising from the planning process increase substantially when no tenders can be launched in parallel with the planning process," the report states.