The European Commission has halted the payments which were allocated for the 2007-2013 programming period. This concerns five operational programmes focused on informatisation of society, health care, funds for Bratislava Region, research and development, and cross-border cooperation between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The exact sum has not been specified yet, the SITA newswire reported.
“The respective supervising bodies are fully responsible for adopting corrections and preventive measures as well as for communicating with the European Commission on unblocking the payments,” Monika Hucáková, spokesperson for the Deputy PM for Investments and Informatisation, told the SITA newswire.
Regarding the Operational Programme Research and Development, Slovakia has used 99.85 percent of €1.209 billion as of June 30, while in the programme focused on Bratislava Region 99.29 percent of €95.21 million has been used. As for the Operational Programme Informatisation of Society 95.76 percent of €843.6 million has been spent, in cross-border cooperation the figure is 92.06 percent of €92.74 million and in health care 89.97 percent of €250 million.
The total amount of money drawn from all 11 operational programmes within the 2007-2013 programming period has amounted to 96.93 percent as of July 15. Together with three smaller programmes, the total share accounts for 96.88 percent. Concerning all 14 programmes, altogether €11.257 billion was used by June 30, which is 96.89 percent of the total amount of €11.618 billion, SITA wrote.
The final sum will be known only after completion of the 2007-2013 period, based on the final documents that Slovakia will submit to the EC in March 2017, Hucáková said.
Slovakia meanwhile has started using the money allocated for the years 2014-2020. It had already drawn 1.59 percent of the allocated sum as of July 15. One of the reasons was that Slovakia had the exception to continue drawing EU funds for the previous period until the end of last year. Moreover, it adopted the necessary legislation later, Hucáková added, as reported by SITA.
