Minister Häkämies: Structural fund administration must be improved
Finland needs to enhance the efficiency of its administrative procedures for the EU’s structural fund programmes and must cut current administrative costs. ‘This will enable us to ensure the maximum possible leverage from appropriations received from the EU in the next programming period, which extends until 2020’, emphasised Jyri Häkämies, Minister of Economic Affairs, in his speech at the structural fund current affairs event held at Finlandia Hall on 15 November.
‘Despite the fact that, in comparison with the EU in general, Finland administers its structural funds well, greater efficiency is still required. This will become increasingly important as the EU Commission transfers more responsibility for administrative obligations to Member Countries. It is in nobody’s interest that project administration swallows a quarter, and in the worst cases, up to 60 per cent, of project budgets. I aim to cut the administration’s share of costs by one half in the next programming period', the Minister declared.
‘We need to make public sector activities more efficient while lightening the administrative burden of projects receiving EU funding. I aim to achieve the lightest administration possible, as well as simple procedures with minimum bureaucracy. However, this must not compromise standards in project monitoring or reliability of reporting', emphasised Minister Häkämies.
He also stated Finland’s aim for the new programming period, of ensuring a fair financing position relative to other member countries. The best way to succeed in this would be to apply the weighting of the current period’s five per cent population density criterion, and to increase the amount of special funding granted to East and North Finland. A sufficient level of special support for sparsely populated areas is vital to Finland, he emphasised. In the current period, 40 per cent of total funding received by Finland from the EU is based on population density and a sparse population.
Minister Häkämies pointed out that the appropriations for the current programming period too should be spent more efficiently and targeted with greater precision. ‘Projects must provide various kinds of support for Finland’s innovation activity and competitiveness. By this, I am not only referring to the R&D activity of businesses, but also to high quality projects promoting labour force development, and investments in preventing social exclusion', he concluded.
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