mr chairman fundamentally this report seems to have some very good objectives helping the member states of the eu who have been hard hit by the economic and financial crisis via european funding
it has the laudable goal of wanting to reduce strains on member states budgets when demands upon them are coming from all directions
reducing the project thresholds and simplifying the process will all help as well as the pre-financing of agreed projects to jump start economies quickly
when europe is facing unemployment figures in excess of ten in many member states much worse and the economy looks only now to be slowly reviving there are many things member states should be doing to rebuild their state finances
however this report is fairly limited and does not seem to address many of them
however a note of caution the idea that member states should no longer have to cofinance projects with any of their own money seems a high-risk policy
already much of european money is not properly accounted for in spending projects due to improper oversight procedures
removing a member state's vested interest in ensuring its own money is well-spent should not be an invitation to their misuse
we need to ensure that relaxing the cofinance criteria does not reduce accountability
however this problem in itself is unlikely to have much effect on my constituents in wales as if the european union has its own way we will not post twenty thirteen have any more money to spend on any ongoing projects which are so generously cofunded by the european funding at this moment in time
while it is all very well to say that some of the new member states are poorer than the old and so need special help the colossal amount of debt in the uk and the very low gdp per capita in my region of wales which was recently compared unhelpfully to the economic performance of rwanda hopefully mean it will not be forgotten
i have discovered by word of mouth that plans may be under way to disqualify regions like wales and i do hope that in the future we will qualify for transitional funding
