The EU Court of Auditors (ECA) has recently criticised the European Commission for irregularities in implementation of the Structural Policies for Pre-accession (ISPA) fund.
ISPA was one of the instruments to assist the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the preparation for accession in the period 2000-2006. Its objectives were to help candidate countries to apply EU environmental standards and to upgrade and expand transport networks, including links with the Trans-European network. It had has a financial envelope of 7 280 million euro.
According to a special report issued by the ECA, on 9 February, the Commission is responsible for numerous delays in the implementation of projects as it failed to provide on time the applicant countries with “three important methodological guidance documents." According to the Court projects were not implemented according to planning and there significant changes in the financing plans. The ECA has called on the Commission to provide the guidance documents to the applicant countries before they start preparing their projects.
