26.6.1999   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 161/57

(1)

Whereas, pursuant to Article 16(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 (5), the Council is to reexamine that Regulation before 31 December 1999;

(2)

Whereas the basic principles of the Cohesion Fund laid down in 1994 should continue to govern the Fund's activities until 2006 although experience has shown the need for improvements;

(3)

Whereas, while the single currency, the euro, will affect the macroeconomic situation of the Community, it will not remove the need for eligibility of the beneficiary countries to be based on gross national product;

(4)

Whereas all the Member States participating in the euro are to submit to the Council a stability programme setting out in particular their medium-term objective for achieving a budget that is nearly in balance or is in surplus;

(5)

Whereas, by Decision No 1692/96/EC (6), the European Parliament and the Council adopted Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network;

(6)

Whereas, during the transitional period (1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001), all references to the euro should normally also be read as references to the euro as a monetary unit, as provided for in the second sentence of Article 2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 974/98 of 3 May 1998 on the introduction of the euro (7);

(7)

Whereas, in view of the continuing progress achieved towards real convergence and taking account of the new macroeconomic context in which the Cohesion Fund now operates, the overall allocation of assistance of Member States participating in the euro will be adjusted so as to take account of the improvement in national prosperity attained over the previous period;

(8)

Whereas the procedures for the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies were set out in Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 (8);

(9)

Whereas the preliminary and final figures for the public-sector borrowing requirement, gross domestic product and gross national product must be compiled in accordance with the rules of the European system of integrated economic accounts established by Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 (9);

(10)

Whereas the Resolution on the Stability and Growth Pact (10) adopted at the Amsterdam European Council meeting on 17 June 1997 sets out the roles of the Member States, the Commission and the Council;

(11)

Whereas, while the principle of a high level of assistance is retained, the search for other sources of finance, in particular the beneficiary Member States effort to maximise the leverage of Fund resources by encouraging greater use of private sources of funding should be supported by the Commission; whereas the rates of assistance should be varied to improve the leverage of Fund resources and to take better account of the rate of return on projects; whereas application of the polluter-pays principle laid down in Article 174 of the Treaty must be complied with in operations financed by the Fund;

(12)

Wheras the responsibility of the Member State for financial control work should be clearly laid down;

(13)

Whereas there should be provision to ensure continuity of finance for operations in progress and their adjustments to the new regulatory requirements;

(14)

Whereas Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 should be amended accordingly,

1.

2.

Paragraph 4 to be added to Article 2 shall read as follows:

‘4.   To be eligible under the Fund from 1 January 2000, the beneficiary Member States must have introduced a programme as provided for in Articles 3 and 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 (13).

The four Member States meeting the GNP criterion referred to in paragraph 1 are Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

A mid-term review as provided for in paragraph 3 shall be carried out before the end of 2003 based on per capita GNP as shown by Community data for the period 2000 to 2002.’

(13)  OJ L 209, 2.8.1997, p. 2."

3.

Article 3 is hereby amended as follows:

4.

In Article 4, the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs to be added shall read as follows:

‘From 1 January 2000, total resources available for commitments in the period 2000 to 2006 should be EUR 18 billion at 1999 prices.

Commitment appropriations for each year of that period should be:

—   2000: EUR 2,615 billion,

—   2001: EUR 2,615 billion,

—   2002: EUR 2,615 billion,

—   2003: EUR 2,615 billion,

—   2004: EUR 2,515 billion,

—   2005: EUR 2,515 billion,

—   2006: EUR 2,510 billion.

In the event of a Member State becoming ineligible, resources for the Cohesion Fund will be reduced accordingly.’

5.

Article 5 shall be replaced by the following:

‘Article 5

Indicative allocation

An indicative allocation of the total resources of the Fund shall be made on the basis of precise and objective criteria, principally population, per capita GNP taking account of the improvement in national prosperity attained over the previous period, and surface area; it shall also take account of other socioeconomic factors such as deficiencies in transport infrastructure.

The indicative allocation of the total resources resulting from the application of those criteria is set out in Annex I.

Total annual receipts from the Cohesion Fund under this Regulation, in combination with assistance provided under the Structural Funds, should not exceed 4 % of national GDP.’

6.

Article 6 shall be replaced by the following:

‘Article 6

Conditional assistance

1.   No new projects or, in the event of important projects, no new project stages shall be financed by the Fund in a Member State in the event of the Council, acting by a qualified majority on a recommendation from the Commission, finding that the Member State in the application of this Regulation has not implemented the programme referred to in Article 2(4) in such a way as to avoid an excessive government deficit.

The suspension of financing shall cease when the Council, acting under the same conditions, finds that the Member State concerned has taken measures to implement that programme in such a way as to avoid an excessive government deficit.

2.   Exceptionally, in the case of projects directly effecting more than one Member State, the Council acting by a qualified majority on a recommendation from the Commission may decide to defer suspension of financing.’

7.

Article 7 is hereby amended as follows:

8.

Article 10 is hereby amended as follows:

9.

Article 11 is hereby amended as follows:

in paragraph 5, ‘ecus’ shall be replaced by ‘euro’.

10.

Article 12 is hereby amended as follows:

11.

In Article 16(1), the words ‘before the end of 1999’ shall be replaced ‘by 31 December 2006 at the latest’.

12.

Annex I shall be replaced by the following: