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Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006 and Slovakia, especially the former, where the deficit increased between these two years, signifying an expansionary fiscal policy. In Hungary, this led to financial problems and a significant tightening of policy in 2007 and 2008. Policy was also expansionary in the three Baltic States, where the high rate of growth would otherwise have led to a much more substantial reduction in the deficit or increase in the surplus. In the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, fiscal policy seems to have been largely neutral over the period. In both Cyprus and Malta, however, there is evidence of some tightening in budgetary policy after entry into the EU. 2.2.4 Government fixed investment over the programming period The budgetary policy pursued over the period is reflected to some extent in the funding made available for public investment 12 , which tends to be the category of government expenditure which can most easily – or less painfully – be postponed. There is still, however, a political choice over the items of expenditure to be reduced if government spending is cut back when the budget is tightened, so there is no automatic link between fiscal restraint and reductions in investment. Nevertheless, in most of the countries in which budgetary policy was relatively restrictive over the period, especially the latter part, public investment was comparatively low in relation to GDP. This was the case in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Italy, while in the Netherlands, public investment was much higher but was reduced after 2003 (Table 2.2). It was not the case in Sweden, however, where despite the tightening of fiscal policy, public investment remained relatively high and was increased slightly as a share of GDP. This was also the case in France, where policy also seems to have been tightened over the period, if by less. In Portugal, the tightening of fiscal policy was reflected in a marked cutback in public investment which was reduced from almost 4% of GDP in 2001 to only just over 2% of GDP in 2008. In Greece, public investment was relatively high in the early years of the period up until the Olympic Games and then was reduced significantly in 2005. In Spain and Ireland, public investment remained high throughout the period, while in the UK, there was some increase, reflecting the expansionary nature of policy, even if the level of investment was relatively low 13 . 12 For regional development, government investment is the most relevant category of government expenditure. Ideally, as argued above, the focus should be directly on national government expenditure on regional development, but this cannot be identified in the public sector accounts of any country. Nor can the necessary data be extracted easily from national published sources. Indeed, in most cases, the data cannot be extracted at all, so there are no statistics on development expenditure at national level which can be compared with the expenditure financed by the Structural Funds. A further problem is that the data for government investment are defined in the ESA 95 system of national accounts to be net of sales less purchases of assets. This means that they do not measure ‘new’ fixed investment as such if there are asset transactions (if the government, for example, sells a building or a piece of land or shares in a public company), Since such transactions have tended to become more important over time, with the trend towards privatisation, the figures for government investment have become less and less reliable as a measure of new investment. It is assumed here that asset transactions are small and do not have a significant distorting effect on the investment, figures, but this may well not be the case. 13 It should be noted that in the UK especially, the figures for government investment are distorted by the sales of assets, which are counted as negative expenditure and so as an offset to expenditure on fixed investment, and which tend to be more important than in other countries, The decline in investment in 2005 seems to be entirely a consequence of an increase in such sales. 50
Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006 Synthesis Report In the EU10 countries, public investment was generally higher than in the EU15 Member States from the time of their accession to the Union. By 2006, public investment was around 4% of GDP or above in all of the countries, except Slovenia, where it was only slightly lower, Cyprus and Slovakia. It was particularly high in the three Baltic States, where it increased to over 5% of GDP in 2007. At the same time, public investment was cut back markedly in Hungary in 2007 and 2008 as part of the measures to reduce the budget deficit. With the exception of Hungary, therefore, and to a much lesser extent, Slovakia, the provision of EU funding on a significant scale was reflected in an increase in public investment. It should be reiterated, that the above figures for government investment do not necessarily reflect investment in regional development but that, in the absence of the relevant data, they provide an indication of the scale of this and how it might have changed over the period. Table 2.2 General government fixed capital formation in relation to GDP, 2000-2008 % GDP 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 EU25 2.3 2.4 2.3 2.4 2.4 2.2 2.5 2.5 2.6 EU15 2.2 2.3 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.2 2.4 2.4 2.5 LU 3.8 4.3 4.9 4.6 4.2 4.5 3.6 3.4 3.9 IE 3.5 4.3 4.3 3.7 3.5 3.5 3.7 4.4 5.4 ES 3.2 3.3 3.5 3.6 3.4 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.8 NL 3.1 3.3 3.5 3.6 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 GR 3.6 3.6 3.4 3.6 3.7 2.9 3.0 3.0 2.9 FR 3.1 3.0 2.9 3.1 3.1 3.3 3.2 3.3 3.2 SE 2.8 2.9 3.1 2.9 2.9 3.0 3.1 3.1 3.3 PT 3.8 3.9 3.5 3.1 3.1 2.9 2.4 2.3 2.1 FI 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.9 2.9 2.6 2.4 2.5 2.5 IT 2.3 2.4 1.7 2.5 2.4 2.4 2.3 2.3 2.2 DK 1.7 1.9 1.8 1.6 1.9 1.8 1.9 1.7 1.8 BE 2.0 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.8 1.6 1.6 1.6 DE 1.8 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.5 1.5 UK 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.7 0.7 1.8 1.8 2.3 AT 1.5 1.2 1.3 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 CZ 3.6 3.5 3.9 4.5 4.8 4.9 5.0 4.7 4.8 EE 3.8 4.1 5.3 4.4 3.8 4.0 5.1 5.4 5.6 CY 2.9 2.9 3.0 3.4 4.0 3.1 3.0 3.0 3.0 LV 1.3 1.1 1.3 2.4 3.1 3.1 4.6 5.7 4.9 LT 2.4 2.2 2.9 3.0 3.4 3.4 4.1 5.2 4.9 HU 3.2 3.7 4.9 3.5 3.5 4.0 4.4 3.6 2.8 MT 3.9 3.4 4.1 4.7 3.9 4.9 4.1 4.0 2.7 PL 2.4 3.4 3.4 3.3 3.4 3.4 3.9 4.1 4.6 SI 3.2 3.2 3.0 3.2 3.5 3.2 3.7 3.7 4.2 SK 2.8 3.1 3.3 2.6 2.4 2.1 2.2 1.9 1.8 Note: Countries are ordered according to the average over the period Source: Eurostat, General Government accounts and national accounts 51
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