Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

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Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006 Portugal, where it remained unchanged. It was also the case in Italy and the Netherlands, where GDP increased barely at all. On the other hand, in 6 of the EU15 countries, growth hardly slowed down at all over these two years and in four countries, it averaged around 3% a year or more. These four included Greece and Spain, two of the Cohesion countries. In the subsequent three years, 2003-2006, GDP growth recovered everywhere. The recovery, however, was less in three countries in which cohesion policy was particularly important, Germany, Italy and Portugal, than elsewhere. This was especially the case in Portugal, where growth of GDP averaged only just over 1% a year over the period 2003-2006, considerably less than over the years before 2001. In Germany and Italy, growth was only slightly higher and less than experienced in the 1990s during the previous programming period. In the other EU15 Member States, growth was close to the long-term trend. The main exceptions were the Netherlands and Ireland, where it was slightly lower than in the earlier programming period but still relatively high. By contrast, in both Greece and Sweden growth was higher than in the earlier period, at around 4% a year. While growth in 2007 was for the most part much the same or higher than over the preceding three years, there was a marked slowdown in 2008 in most countries as the financial crisis began to take effect. The economic climate for the conduct of regional development policy, therefore, became unfavourable. By then, however, the funding made available for the 2000-2006 programming period had already been committed, so it is likely to have had a minimal effect on policy. In Italy and Portugal, together to a lesser extent in Germany, the national economic context was unfavourable throughout much of the period. On the other hand, in Greece and Spain, the other major recipients of Structural Fund support, the reverse was the case and regional development policy was implemented in the context of relatively high and sustained rates of economic growth. 2.2.2 Growth of GDP in the EU10 Member States In the EU10 countries, with the exception of Malta, growth was universally higher than in most EU15 countries throughout most of the period, during both the pre-accession years and the years after entry. In most EU10 countries, entry into the EU was accompanied by an increase in the rate of growth. In all except Malta (where growth was still higher than before), growth of GDP averaged over 4% a year in the three years 2004-2006 and in all apart from Cyprus, Hungary and Slovenia (where it was only marginally below), 5% a year or more. The growth rate was particularly high in Slovakia and the three Baltic States. In 2007, growth slowed down only in Hungary, where macroeconomic problems predate the financial crisis. Growth was also reasonably high in most countries in 2008. In Estonia and Latvia, however, the reversal of fortunes was dramatic. In both, GDP fell sharply after rising markedly for many years before then. In Hungary, growth continued to slow down, while in Lithuania, growth was considerably less than in preceding years. Only in these four countries, therefore – though in Lithuania only to a minor extent – and then only at the very end of period, is regional development likely to have been adversely affected by unfavourable economic conditions at the national level. 48
Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006 Synthesis Report 2.2.3 Budget policy over the programming period Since there are no data readily available on the amount of national funding going to regional development across the EU, the only way of getting an indication of its scale and how it changed over the period is by examining the stance of budgetary policy and the size of government investment 11 . The national funds made available to support regional development in Member States will tend to be affected by budgetary policy. The more restrictive the policy, on average the less the funding is likely to be and vice versa. Figures for the budget balance, if related to the growth of GDP, suggest that budgetary policy was relatively expansionary during the first three years of the period (i.e. public expenditure increased relative to revenue from taxes) and then became relatively restrictive from 2003 or so onwards (see Box). Box – Budgetary policy and the budget balance The restrictive or expansionary nature of policy cannot be judged from movements in the budget balance alone. This is because both government revenue and expenditure, and accordingly the balance between them, are affected not only by decisions to increase or reduce tax rates and public spending programmes but by the rate of economic growth. The higher the rate of growth, the larger the increase in revenue yielded by a given set of tax rates and the lower the increase in spending on a given set of expenditure programmes (largely because of the social protection element) and correspondingly, the more the budget deficit will tend to shrink or the surplus increase. Conversely, the lower the rate of growth, the more the deficit will tend to increase without any changes in tax rates or expenditure programmes. This is less the case in Belgium, where concern to reduce the high level of accumulated government debt led to the budget being restrictive throughout most of the period, the only exception being in 2005. The tightening of the budget was particularly pronounced in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark from 2003 on. On the other hand, in the UK, budgetary policy was significantly expansionary over the first four years of the period and then remained broadly unchanged from then on. In Greece, policy was also expansionary during the period up until 2004 when the Olympic Games took place and then, according to the official figures at least, was tightened in 2005 and 2006 before being relaxed again. In Italy and Portugal, alone among the EU15 countries, the budget deficit increased between 2003 and 2006, though it was then reduced in 2007. The rise, however, was small and given the low rate of economic growth in both countries, it suggests some budget tightening over the period. Moreover, in Portugal, it followed two years of zero growth when the budget deficit was kept unchanged implying a significant tightening of policy. In the EU10 countries, the budget deficit was in most cases smaller – or in Estonia, the surplus larger – in 2006 than in 2003 before the countries entered the Union. The exceptions are Hungary 11 A recent study carried out for DG Regional Policy, Distribution of Competences in relation to Regional Development Policies in the Member States of the European Union (Ismeri Europa and Applica sprl) attempted to compile data for national expenditure on regional development for a selected number of Member States but was unable to do so for most of the countries. Moreover for the few countries for which it was possible, the data were not entirely satisfactory nor directly comparable with the data on the deployment of the Structural Funds. This has the further implication that it is not possible on the basis of published data to verify that the additionality requirement has been respected. 49
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