Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
Synthesis Report
In the EU10 countries, EU sources of finance for environmental infrastructure were slightly less
important than in the four EU15 Cohesion countries over the period and national government
sources, on average, slightly more important. This is largely because the ERDF only began to
provide support from mid-2004. Up to then, funding was provided by ISPA, though in most cases
on a smaller scale. It, nevertheless, accounted for around 14-17% of the total over the period
2000-2006. Over the period when the countries were eligible for ERDF support, this provided an
estimated 5% or so of total finance for expenditure. The Cohesion Fund was a far larger source of
finance from mid-2004 on, accounting perhaps for close to half of total support over this period
and around 80-90% in the three Baltic States.
3.6.3 The division of funding between areas of intervention
Overall, expenditure on environmental protection and improvement accounted for around 20% of
the support provided by the ERDF in Objective 1 regions in the EU15 over the programming
period, the proportion varying from 37% in Flevoland in the Netherlands to only around 3% in the
Finnish regions and just 1% in the Swedish ones (Table 3.8). These figures, which relate to
expenditure as at the end of 2008, were slightly lower than initially planned in most countries,
especially in Spain where the proportion was some 5 percentage points less than that initially
allocated.
As indicated above, most of the support from the ERDF on environmental protection and
improvement in Objective 1 regions in the EU15 over the period went on infrastructure to ensure
increased access to clean drinking water, the treatment of wastewater and the management of
other kinds of waste, on the one hand, and the rehabilitation of polluted or rundown areas, on
the other hand. The former accounted, on average, for 48% of total environmental expenditure
financed by the ERDF, the latter for around 44% if the restoration of historical buildings,
monuments and other parts of the cultural heritage is included.
This division of expenditure varied markedly across countries. There was an especially high
concentration of spending on infrastructure investment from the ERDF in Ireland, where all of the
funding for the environment went on extending access to clean drinking water and the disposal
of waste and waste water. In addition, in the Spanish and French Objective 1 regions – mostly
those overseas in the French case – support for infrastructure accounted for 62-63% of ERDF
financing. By contrast, there was more of a concentration of funding on cleaning up polluted
areas in Portugal, where with the restoration of the cultural heritage, this also absorbed around
62% of total funding, and Greece, where the figure was around 55%, most of it going on restoring
and maintaining the cultural heritage. Nevertheless, it was still the case that over 30% of the ERDF
went to supporting infrastructure investment in both countries. There was even more
concentration of funding in these broad areas in the Objective 1 regions in the UK and the single
Objective 1 regions in Belgium and the Netherlands, the proportion rising to 86% in the last.
In Objective 1 regions in the EU10 countries, just over 18% of the ERDF received went on
environmental projects on average, in this case the proportion varying from 45% in Malta to only
8% in Estonia, with only the Czech Republic and Slovakia having a proportion above 20% (see
Table 3.9). In these countries, the share of funding going to environmental expenditure was
broadly in line with what was initially planned, with only Malta (where the share of spending in
this area fell short of plans by around 2.5 percentage points) and Slovakia (where spending
exceeded plans by a similar amount) being exceptions.
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