The Maltese will not have a full picture of how successful the country has been in absorbing its 2008-2013 EU funding until 2017.
Malta had negotiated a grant of more than €1 billion in EU funds to be used for projects across the island.
Under stringent EU rules, the funds could only be used until the end of last year and all payments not made by that time would be lost.
According to the latest data from the European Commission, Malta had managed to absorb only 81.6 per cent of the available funds by the middle of last November, much lower than the 88.4 per cent EU average at that time.
As the programme was drawing to a close at the end of last month, the Finance Ministry issued a statement saying it was working hard towards reaching an absorption rate of some 90 per cent of funds by year’s end.
But neither the government nor the Commission are in a position to give figures yet.
Asked to state whether Malta had managed to spend all the funding allotted to it, a spokesman for the Commission said this would only be known sometime next year, when a final review of the expenditure was concluded. He added, however, that this did not mean Malta had lost any funds. This had still to be determined.
“With regard to the potential loss of funds, the EU executive will only have the full picture at the closure of the programme period, in 2017, after a final review of expenditure,” the spokesman said.
The Finance Ministry was asked whether the target had been reached but a spokesman for Minister Edward Scicluna said EU funds were the responsibility of Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg.
A spokesmen for Dr Borg said it was “still very premature to quote exact absorption rates. “While the programme that closed in 2015 was entirely achieved, the process that involved verifications and other administrative tasks related to the closure are ongoing and will be completed in line with established procedures in the coming months,” the spokesman said.
The 2007-2013 financial programme was the second eligible to Malta since its accession to the EU.
During the first programme, 2004-2007, Malta had managed to absorb EU funding in full.
Malta has now entered its third EU financial programme, for the period 2013-2020, during which €1.2 billion of EU finds are expected to be invested here.
This will probably be the last programme in which Malta will be eligible for the maximum funding. According to EU rules, the more prosperous a member state’s economy, the less funding it is eligible for.