Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
Synthesis Report
In Objective 1 regions in Spain, Greece and Ireland, the aim was primarily to build new roads and
railway lines, to expand the network in order to establish efficient links between regions or
centres of population and economic activity which did not exist before as well as to develop
urban transport systems. Elsewhere, especially in the EU10 countries, the aim was mostly to
upgrade and to improve existing roads and, to a much lesser extent, railway lines. This, in part,
reflects the relatively short time which the EU10 countries had to plan and spend the finance they
received, which inevitably limited the transport projects which could be undertaken, given their
typically long duration. Because of the poor state of much of the road network, however, bringing
this up to international standards was identified as a main priority in many of the countries and of
key importance in furthering regional development.
3.4.2 What was the scale of funding?
Overall, some EUR 29.1 billion from the ERDF was allocated to transport in Objective 1 regions in
EU15 countries over the 2000-2006 period, almost a third of the total amount of funding going
to these regions (see Table 3.5). In addition, around EUR 1.5 billion went to Objective 2 regions,
or only around 7% of the total amount of funding. This much smaller figure reflects the relatively
small overall amount of funding available under Objective 2 combined with the fact that transport
projects tend to involve large amounts of expenditure if they are to make an impact. It also,
however, reflects the fact that in most Objective 2 regions, the transport system was already
relatively efficient and was not, accordingly, a major constraint on development.
In the EU10 countries, some EUR 3.25 billion of the ERDF provided was allocated to transport
once these countries became eligible for support, almost all of this going to Objective 1 regions.
(Only around EUR 21 million went to transport in Praha under Objective 2 and just EUR 2 million
in Cyprus, while in Bratislava, no funding was allocated to transport at all.)
Overall, therefore, some EUR 33.8 billion was allocated to transport from the ERDF over the
programming period. Around half as much again was made available from the Cohesion Fund, a
large proportion of this going to EU10 countries. To give an indication of the relative importance
of funding from these two sources, the amounts involved can be compared with national funding
for transport. Although the figures compiled in the evaluation relate to expenditure in the years
2000-2006 and, accordingly, do not cover spending in 2007 and 2008, which was significant as
noted in Chapter 1, they should, nevertheless, be reasonably representative of the relative scale
of the different sources.
In the EU15, the ERDF accounted for some 3% of the total investment on transport financed from
public sources (i.e. most of it) over the period, while the Cohesion Fund was responsible for 1%,
this mostly going on completing the trans-European transport network of major routes. The scale
of funding in Objective 1 regions was, of course, considerably larger than this, since total
investment covers all regions and not just the Objective 1 ones which at EU15 level undoubtedly
accounted for only a minor part of overall investment. It is likely in fact that the ERDF alone was
responsible for financing around 15% of investment in transport in Objective 1 regions in the
EU15 over the period 28 .
28 This figure is based on the reasonable assumption that investment in transport funded from national sources over
the period in the different regions was proportionate to GDP. Since the GDP of Objective 1 regions in the EU15 was
around 18% of the total, this would imply a figure of 16% of investment being financed from the ERDF. A figure of
15% would, therefore, allow for investment in Objective 1 regions being slightly higher than in others.
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