Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
The division of funding between different types of project varied just as much if not more than in
the EU15. Overall some 36% of the ERDF directed to the environment went on infrastructure
projects to extend access to clean drinking water and on waste and wastewater disposal and
treatment, around 31% went on cleaning up polluted areas and maintaining the cultural heritage,
while the rest was spread across other areas, such as developing renewable energy sources and
combating air pollution.
Infrastructure investment accounted for a particularly large proportion of environmental
expenditure in Slovakia (64%), Latvia (60%) and to a lesser extent in Malta (54%), while the
cleaning up of polluted areas was more important in Hungary (absorbing 55% of the ERDF going
to environmental projects), Slovenia (50%) and Estonia (48%). In both Latvia and Lithuania, in stark
contrast to the other countries, 40% or more of the ERDF in this area went to projects for
improving energy efficiency.
In Objective 2 regions in the EU15, 22% of the ERDF support provided went, on average, to
environmental projects (Table 3.10). The proportion varied from 52% in Luxembourg and 31-32%
in Italy and the Netherlands (where Objective 1 spending in this area was equally relatively high)
to only around 9% in Sweden (where Objective 1 spending in this area was also relatively low) and
7% in Denmark.
In contrast to Objective 1 regions, relatively little of the ERDF going to this broad area went on
supporting investment in environmental infrastructure (only around 20% of the total), reflecting
the generally more developed nature of the regions assisted, though in Spain, a relatively large
proportion of funding went on such support (43%). Most of the funding in most countries (around
two-thirds overall) went on cleaning up polluted areas and maintaining the cultural heritage,
though the last was important only in Spain and Italy. In the Netherlands and the UK, over 90% of
the expenditure funded by the ERDF on environmental projects, was directed to this area together
with preserving the natural landscape, while in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Sweden, it
was over 75%.
In Austria and Finland, on the other hand, a significant proportion of funding (52% and 44%,
respectively) went on supporting the adoption of environmentally-friendly technology by SMEs.
These were the only two countries in which this was the case and where, accordingly, where the
ERDF was used for potentially commercial purposes, to the extent that such technology could
offer the firms concerned a competitive edge (see below), as well as, of course, reducing the
pollution or emissions they caused (and therefore, the social costs of their operations).
In the three EU10 regions receiving funding under Objective 2, a relatively large proportion of this
went on environmental projects in both Praha and Bratislava (43% in the former, some 3
percentage points less than initially planned, and 35% in the latter, 4 percentage points more
than planned). In both, all, or nearly all, of the funding went to cleaning up polluted or rundown
areas, predominantly parts of the two cities. In Cyprus, on the other hand, relatively little funding
was allocated to environmental projects (11%), most of it to supporting the adoption of
environmentally-friendly technology in SMEs (70%).
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