Final Report - European Commission - Europa

Chapter 1 Relevance of the strategy 17
unrelated projects, with no coherent strategy and little focus on key institutional issues. As
discussed below, this was a particular problem in public administration reform, justice and
home affairs, and agriculture.
Poor programming and project selection – support to the Fishery sector
On the basis of a fishery sector survey, it was decided to support construction of fish markets and
spillways. However, there was no economic and financial analysis of the viability of these works; nor
was there attention to institutional, managerial and operational arrangements.
A review commissioned by the Delegation found that the project “has been incredibly botched up by
the unexplainable direct passage from a general fishery sector survey to the contracting with foreign
consultants of the detailed engineering of infrastructures...without knowing anything about the markets,
the functions to be fulfilled by a fish market, the institutional, managerial and operational
arrangements, the financial analysis, and the financial and economic returns to the prospective owners
and to the users.” 32 The project was doomed before it began.
Not surprisingly, the result was continual changes in project scope, design, definition and location,
leading in turn to continual delays. As yet – four years after the financial memorandum - no
construction has been taken place. According to MAF, tender dossiers have now been approved and
the tender process will begin soon. The review concluded: “One wonders as to whom has been behind
such project programming.”
The programming process has produced too many individual programmes and projects.
Currently, there are at least 50 open programmes. 33 Each programme may include a number
of separate projects, each of which may require contracting procedures, tender
documentation, etc. Few of these programmes are very large: only a few infrastructure
programmes, and support to Kosovo refugees, exceed 10 Meuro total. This has two negative
effects.
• It exacerbates the administrative burden on the Delegation (and on the Albanian
authorities).
• It means that EC programmes in individual sectors, rather than consisting of a wellconstructed
strategy for the entire sector, developed in conjunction with the Albanian
authorities (and other donors), consist of a long list of disconnected projects with isolated
components, and a PMU.
Shift in objectives of EC assistance in the annual programme 2000
In the absence of an explicit strategy, annual programming since 2000 has introduced
objectives linked to the SAP and EU integration. The 2000 programme puts the SAP process
on an equal footing with economic development, while the 2001 Order for Services for
CARDS directly states that “the main purpose of the assistance is to support the participation
of Albania in the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP).” Meanwhile, the current
public version of the Commission’s objectives mentions administrative and institutional
reform, support to democracy and the rule of law, economic development, the transition to a
market economy, and integration and harmonisation with the EU in the context of the SAP. 34
There is some lack of clarity in these two sets of objectives.
Economic development and participation in the SAP are not necessarily incompatible and
they may be complementary. However, there has been a shift in emphasis since the 1997
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33
34
Audit of Agriculture Projects, Draft Final Report, April 2001, ADE S.A.
Phare Monthly Report, end-March 2001
European Union Assistance, 2 nd edition, November 2000.