Interview with Istvan Szent-Ivanyi, MEP, 2006, www.seetv-exchanges.com

TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH ISTVAN SZENT-IVANYI, MEP, ON IPA, THE  INSTRUMENT FOR PRE-ACCESSION FOR THE WESTERN BALKANS AND TURKEY

00:00 What is IPA

IPA is a framework financial agreement for seven years. It’s financial, community support for those countries who are candidate or potential candidate countries but the closest countries to EU, Turkey, Croatiaand Macedoniaare candidate countries. The potential candidates are Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

00:26 What is for the candidates, what is for the potential candidates?

It’s not the same because there are five major components and the candidate countries can have access to all parts of the components, the potential candidates can have pre-access only to the two first but they can have some projects funded by the EU but only in the case if they are ready to manage in a decentralised way.

00:54 Who decides if they are ready to manage?

The Commission should decide whether the infrastructure, the administrative capacity, the different authorities are available, functioning, then they can have a decentralised implementation.

01:11 When does IPA starts and how much money is there?

IPA starts next year on January 1 and the duration is seven years. Of course, if a country can join earlier, like Croatia or Macedonia can join, then it is expiring in those countries.

All in all IPA is about 2 billion euros, but country by country are making the breakdowns. My aim now that I’m working on it is that candidate countries will get the same amount of money as the previous candidate countries, which means at least 27 euros per capita per year. In your country you have to multiple that by the population of your country.

02:07 On the flexibility of IPA

So far we had a very fragmented community support: CARDS, SAPARD and so on. Now what is important is that there is flexibility. Flexibility across components and across countries. That means that if one country has not used its money for that, it can be reallocated to another component, for rural development or human resources … The other important thing is the flexibility between countries: if one country cannot use the money, another country can go for that.

02:51 Is it fair?

We have to reassess after the first or second year, that is a midterm review. That means that in the mid of 2008-2009, we are going to reconsider and if it doesn’t work of course we can rethink.

Now we hope that this competition can be very helpful and gives an incentive for every country to have good projects. It’s very good for the countries because they don’t lose the money. In our case there was no flexibility at all, therefore Hungaryand all other candidate countries have lost money. They couldn’t reallocate SAPARD to ISPA e.g. and if Hungarycould not use it, no other country could apply for it. It will be better in my view. But if it’s not working, if it’s causing serious problems or concerns, then we are going to reconsider.

03:55 Which countries are ready to use the money?

In my view, Croatia and Macedonia are ahead of the others and I hope that the other countries are making more efforts and are willing to set up an infrastructure to use it. I would propose to go into the decentralised implementation. I see some serious capacity problems in the other countries.

04:28 Is there a lot of money for agriculture?

Yes, one element is agriculture, not only agriculture but also rural development. It depends very much whether the country would like to use the whole money because in the framework of flexibility they can get even more that we plan for that.

If Macedonia considers that agriculture is its first priority, they will get more than we think. It’s possible.

04:59 How a small enterprise gets the money?

It depends very much on the implementation because you cannot apply by the EU, you can apply by the local authorities. They have to set up a framework, we will approve this framework document, it means that e.g. the Macedonian state authorities will make a first breakdown, if we approve it, everything will be decided in the ground, in Skopje in cooperation with EU delegation and the state authorities.

05:48 And then?

(The one who wants to apply for a project) has to get advertisement and tenders and everybody is on tender. No one can say I need money! There are different projects, projects are opened and publicly advertised on TV, newspapers and so on and if someone’s intentions are fitting into the framework, they can make an application, then the local authorities and the local officers of the EU jointly decide.

06:26 The review process of the EU budget for 2009? What could change?

It can change a lot if we see that it has to change. On the one hand , I would like to get more money than what we have now. I’m very unhappy with what we have now, there are limited fundings, 2 billion less than we expected. It’s not good news. I hope that in the midterm review we will be able to upgrade. Another thing is that we can collect all experiences. If some components don’t work or some country doesn’t go in the right direction, than we can reassess the whole process.

07:10 On the suspension clause.

It’s an important clause, we do hope very much that we shall never suspend any support for any country but there is a possibility, even the Parliament can initiate it. In the case where there are serious problems with human rights, rule of law or implementation of the money. If we think that there is corruption or stealing of the money or inefficient use of the money, than we can initiate a suspension of the money. I hope it will never happen but there is a possibility.

07:46 Cutaways of the EP Committee for Foreign affairs session

08:18 Cutaways of Mr Szent Ivanyi’s name

08:24 Cutaways of EP exterior

08:37 END OF TRANSMISSION