European Economic and Social Committee rapporteur Stefano Mallia recently travelled to Latvia to meet social partners and government officials responsible for handling the new EU Structural Funds.

During a two-day visit Mr Mallia heard about the difficulties faced by Latvia in managing and absorbing EU funds and the preparations underway for the new EU funding programming period 2014-2020.

“It was a very useful visit during which I heard firsthand of the difficulties being faced by both beneficiaries and managing authorities with accessing and managing EU funds and projects,” Mr Mallia said. “The scope of this visit was to crystallise some of the key problems and propose solutions so that, where possible, mistakes are not repeated in the next programming period.”

The report being prepared by Mr Mallia will focus on what is known as the Common Strategic Framework which essentially sets out how all the main EU funds will be coordinated with the aim of ensuring that the investments on the ground lead to the achievement of Europe’s growth strategy, known as Europe 2020.

The proposed CSF approach marks a significant departure from the current approach where each fund has its own distinctive objectives and the different EU funds cannot be used for the same project.

The report which is currently being drafted will be presented and voted upon during the EESC plenary session in December following which it will be formally presented to the European Council, the European Parliament and the Commission.

Mr Mallia was also invited by the chairman of the Ogre Region to visit a €35 million project which is now providing all the inhabitants of the city with first class drinking water. Mr Mallia said that given Latvia’s size he could easily draw a number of parallels with Malta on the problems being faced by a small member state, although according to Mr Mallia “in a number of aspects, especially with regards to the absorption of the funds, one can easily see that Malta has been doing very well.”