Slovakia's results in drawing the EU funds for the 2004-2006 period won't be 100 percent, said Dušan Čaplovič, Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, a Knowledge-based Society, Human Rights and Minorities, on December 22.
Čaplovič said he appreciated the decision made by the European Commission (EC) to prolong the time for drawing the EU funds for the period which should originally end on December 31.
"The scope has been opened for us to draw the remaining financial resources in the fields where we have backlogs," he said.
At the beginning of December, financial means designed for Slovakia were drawn to 91.22 percent.
"I can say now that €1.169 billion (Sk35.22 billion) has been used for specific programs and projects," he said, adding that the biggest part, €422.4 million (Sk12.73 billion), was used for basic infrastructure projects.
The Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and the Family has had the biggest problem with drawing the funds, Čaplovič conceded, claiming that this was due to a lack of employees and diversification of small social projects.
"A project worth, let's say, Sk100,000 (€3320) was as difficult to be prepared as projects worth Sk1 million (€33,200) or Sk1 billion (€33.2 million)," he said. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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