Response to the comments of the European Commission regarding the ex-post evaluation report of the SAPARD Programme in Romania

Transcription

1 Response to the comments of the European Commission regarding the ex-post evaluation report of the SAPARD Programme in Romania 1. An assessment of the elements of national legislation which in certain cases introduces administrative procedures, stricter than required by the SAPARD rules, which could have slowed down the smooth implementation of the programme or indeed have hampered an efficient implementation. Information concerning that issue can be only found in the chapter Relevant national policies, however very limited. Concerning "the assessment of national legislation adopted for ruling the SAPARD Programme"; the Independent Evaluator has highlighted that since 2000 the Romanian legal system has been deeply changed. An impressive effort has been carried on by the Romanian Parliament in order to satisfy European requirements taking into account the former legal system based on the massive presence of the State in all economic activities. The ex-post evaluation report deeply address this issue and can be found references at the beginning of the report on paragraph 1.1 "Key evaluation findings" and analysis on chapter and paragraph 7.2 and 7.4 regarding the "Relevance" of the Programme. Also in answering the Common Evaluation Questions K2 a preliminary assessment has been done analyzing the contribution of the programme to the new legal framework adopted. In terms of policy - legislation, SAPARD Programme gave an important impetus to adapting the existing framework for Romania's EU accession. In particular, 2000 marked the beginning of the decade of integration, characterized by reforms directed to the adoption of the acquis communautaire, to the status of market economy and to supporting commercial farms. In this context, various forms of support were given to improve the technical equipment of farms, to support production of goods and procurement of inputs. Moreover, a number of relevant legal documents was approved, totaling 50 laws (the most important), on the following main topics: the institutional system of management of agricultural policy and rural development; ratification of Romania's agreements with the EU in terms of SAPARD Programme; regulation of producers' groups; regulation of deprived areas (including areas affected by floods), agricultural loans. Given the fact that the acquis communautaire in the domain is subjected to a high support under SAPARD Programme, have been noticed some deficiencies within the implementation. The deficiencies were due either to applying more stricter rules than foreseen within the European norms (given the fact that the translation of European norms has not always been achieved simultaneously with the abrogation of national regulation into force, being imposed additional conditions which proved not to be necessary in time), or to some lacks within existing regulations subjected to improvement during the implementation of Programme. As concerns the insertion within intern norms of some stricter requirements than the ones foreseen within the European norms, we mention as example the modality in which the MAFA provision from Annex B, art. 4 eligibility of expenditures, paragraph 4, according to which a project remains eligible for Community co-financing only if it has not been subjected to an important modification during a period of 5 years since the date of the final payment performed by the SAPARD Agency has been regulated under intern norms. Thus, according to the approved legal provisions in applying these MAFA disposals, it was imposed to be demonstrated by the beneficiaries a profit of at least 5%, within the five years of ex-post monitoring - which on the basis of the economic - financing crisis from the last years represented an extremely difficult condition to fulfill, causing the cancellation of projects with negative impact on the agro-food domain, and also within social and financial plan. On the other hand, the delay with which has been approved the legal framework of setting-up producers groups, as well as the extremely limited regulation of the conditions that must be fulfilled, led to delays within the final stage of measure 3.2 Setting up producer groups, and also 1

2 conditioned the success of its implementation. Practically, the lack of stimulents or financial facilities, as well as the bureaucracy supposed by the setting of a producer group, led to a limited number of recognized groups, of which a smaller number required support under the SAPARD Programme (4 projects). 2. The report should examine the overall impact on job creation now that the programmes have been completed. Only very limited information can be found in the chapter 1.1 Key evaluation findings Regarding the "overall impact on job creation", this issue is a cross cutting theme, the Evaluator always paid attention to it in particular, detailed information can be found within the answers to the Common Evaluation Questions (CEQ). In the "Annex 2" of the report for each measure, can be found a description of methodologies adopted to quantify the contribution of SAPARD programme to the job maintenance/creation. There, for each relevant measure (1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 3.4, 3.5), is estimated the contribution to maintenance/creation of job. The impact on job creation/ maintenance through the Romania SAPARD Programme, as well as a synthesis of the answer to CEQ L2, are briefly summarized below. The job market in the Romanian rural areas is going through a profound transformation, from a system based on primary sector to a system to re-launching industry and services. SAPARD Programme tried to support this transformation and the table below shows the targets estimated by the Evaluator for the creation/maintenance of jobs following financing. Jobs created/maintained following the initiation of a project funded by SAPARD per measure and unit costs per FTE are presented below: Measure Target of Sapard Jobs estimated by the Evaluator in FTE Total amount paid /FTE Maintained Created a b b/a Measure ,300 5,700 27, ,024,392 12,929 Measure 1.2 n.a. n.a 24 29,355,166 1,223,132 Measure ,400 (temporary) 1,400 (permanent) 16, ,300,647 36,653 Measure ,800 3,200 13, ,839,730 17,669 Measure ,200 21,300 10,946 68,196,078 6,230 Measure 3.5 n.a. 1, ,599, ,050 Total 44,300 47,039 67,970 1,343,315,446 19,763 Source: Sapard Programme and direct survey conducted by the Evaluator (april/may 2011) The average cost for a job created/maintained is about 19,763 this value is justified by comparison to the reference sectors and the cost of living in general in Romania. Regarding the main measures within the Programme (1.1, 3.1 and 3.4), we mention the following: In order to follow a long term impact of the investments within measure 1.1 related to the creation and maintenance of jobs, the Evaluator studied the evolution of the number of employees between the year of application for financing (differentiated per each particular project) and Of these data it results that, as a whole, the number of the employees of the responding trading companies increased per long term, with a total of 1,180 persons. 2

3 Therefore, for the beneficiaries included in the sample, from the year of submission of the financing request until 2009 a total of 2,734 jobs were created, 9,546 jobs were maintained, and 1,554 jobs were abolished. The Evaluator calculated the number of jobs created, respectively maintained, which are due to the SAPARD Programme by multiplying the totals with the percentage represented by the achieved investments from SAPARD funds of the total investments executed by the benefiting trading companies (in accordance with the respondents answers). Therefore we reached to 747 created jobs (an average of 17.4 jobs created per project, with a cost of 51, Euro per created job) and 2,347 jobs maintained (54.6 jobs maintained per project, 16, Euro per maintained job). Extrapolating the obtained results for the sample trading companies to all the financed projects with measure 1.1, the Evaluator estimated the overall impact of the measures. Considering that the total involved public value of the contracts, for all the 459 projects benefiting from measure 1.1 was 337,407, Euro 1, applying the average of the amounts expended on a created/maintained job calculated for the projects in the sample, we can estimate that the investments financed with measure 1.1 led to the creation of 6,555 new jobs and contributed to maintaining a number of 20,595 jobs, representing a total of 27,150 jobs, 9.74% of the total number of employees (278,837 employees) at the level of national economy in the following fields: agriculture, chasing, and annexed services, forestry and forest holdings; fishery and fish farming, food industry and beverage manufacturing in The investments carried out through measure 3.1 have had diversified effects on the maintenance and creation of new workplaces. Analysing the results obtained for trade companies, from the pattern for all the projects financed through measure 3.1, the Evaluator estimates that the investments financed through measure 3.1 have led to the creation of 2,490 new workplaces and have contributed to the maintenance of 10,914 workplaces. However, the Evaluator adds that, for approximately 20% of the beneficiaries, the number of employees has decreased and this fact is explained through the replacement of human work force with installations and equipment purchased from the SAPARD financing Programme. As regards measure 3.4, in order to be able to calculate the impact indicator concerning the ratio for the creation of workplaces for the population in the rural areas, the Evaluator called upon the context data (DG-AGRI Agricultural Policy Perspectives, Member States Factsheets March 2011) and the information included in the document NPRD With the help of these data, the calculation of the value of rural population which is not employed in agricultural activities, which was quantified to around 1.2 million persons, representing 24.5% of the active population in rural regions. On the other hand, the number of workplaces created in agricultural diversification activities promoted through the Programme has been estimated and it resulted that around 8,108 new jobs have been created and around 2,838 have been maintained due to the initiatives of measure 3.4. Hence, the ration of the SAPARD Programme for the creation of work opportunities, intended for the population which is not employed in agriculture in the rural area of Romania, was around 1%. Integrating the information analysed by the Evaluator within the report, it is also noteworthy how during the period the occupation of the workforce in Romania in the sectors agriculture, hunting and related services, Forests and aquaculture, Agri-food industry, Industry of beverages yielded together a reduction by 10%, the impact of SAPARD on the 1 In accordance with the Final report regarding the implementation of the SAPARD Programme in Romania, pg. 159, the amount engaged on for the 459 projects financed with m easure 1.1 was 337,407, Euro. For extrapolation, was used the value of the involved amount, not the paid amount ( Euro), since for the sample project, the Evaluator only had at hand the public contracted value, in accordance with the Excel sheet List of SAPARD Programme beneficiaries of measure 1.1 ( and were not available data referring to the paid amounts. 2 Source: INS: TEMPO_FOM104G_6_6_2011 3

4 reference sectors was a positive one, contributing in explicit form both to the maintenance and the creation of about 68,000 jobs in the rural areas of Romania. In conclusion, the activity of evaluation regarding the occupation of the workforce brought to light the positive impact generated by the Programme, both in direct and indirect form regarding the stabilization of the population in the rural areas following the creation of jobs. 3. To what extent has SAPARD contributed and been conducive to improving the design and implementation of administrative structures and national legislation in preparation for postaccession RDPs? Regarding the contribution of SAPARD to improve the design and implementation of administrative structures in preparation of RDP's, is important to underline that during the evaluation activity has been carried, has been put a special focus on administrative capacity in terms of the "Acquis Communitaire" of the "public structure" in charge to implement the RDP. In particular, a direct survey has been implemented during April-May 2011 with more than 500 civil servants within MADR and PARDF. The results of this activity are summarized in Paragraph and of the Final ex-post Report. Also the answers to the Common Evaluation Questions J1, J2, Q1, K2 clarify the contribution of SAPARD to this. Therefore, the Evaluator estimated that in total at least 58% of the civil servants who work in the field of rural development were familiarized with EU standards, norms and procedures following the implementation of the programme. Starting with year 2000 Romania beneficiated from technical assistance under pre-adhesion programs (SAPARD, PHARE, ISPA) and acquired thus an important experience in coordonating and implementing such programs. The pre-adhesion programs have had an important role not only by perspective of financing investments within the social-economic development of Romania, as well as in accumulating the experience necessary for preparring post-adhesion programmes. The new structures for managing the post-adhesion funds for rural development were constituted on the basis of the old SAPARD unit and from MARD. The personnel has been trained in elaborating and management of projects, which are of essential importance within the implementing of EU acquis and within the context of significant increasing of EU allocated funds. The management and implementing system of National Rural Development Programme for has been formed starting from the experience acquired in managing pre-adhesion instruments in rural development, respectively the SAPARD Programme. In July 2005, the Government has adopted the Action Plan for improving the managing systems of non-refundable funds granted for Romania by the European Union (pre-adhesion funds and structural instruments) whose purpose was to improve the Romanian administrative capacity in managing efficiently and absorbing an increased flow of funds from the European Union during and after the adhesion of Romania to EU. The SAPARD Programme has benefited during , under many PHARE projects, from the strenghtening of the institutional capacity of SAPARD Agency at central and regional level for the development of professional competencies in implementing rural development programmes financed by the European Union, of public institutions in order to provide information and consultancy to the beneficiaries of SAPARD programme, preparing the SAPARD Agency personnel and other persons involved within the SAPARD Programme in order to implement efficiently the programme and consolidating the capacity of the Managing Authority in monitoring the SAPARD Programme, etc. 4

5 In establishing the implementation strategy of NRDP , has been taken into account the experience of implementing the SAPARD Programme which has shown that, to the end of each programming period, the number of financing requests is bigger than in the first years of implementation, given the acquired experience from an institutional point of view, as well as for beneficiariees following the actions organized in advertising the Programme, and on the other hand, due to the increase and orientation of financial interests and investments of potential beneficiaries in order to capitalize all the available business possibilities under various national programmes offered by the Romanian state. The SAPARD Programme contributed to the build up of relevant competences and qualifications to administer EU programmes in the SAPARD Agency (central, regional and county) and in the MARD, and it did contribute to the development of the competences among stakeholders and beneficiaries in general, providing good promises for future development of the sector. One of the great advantages was the existence of a corresponding institutional framework in order to ensure the efficiency of activities, the personnel of MA and PARDF showing the necessary expertise in proper management of the National Rural Development Programme , as compared to the personnel who implemented operational programmes corresponding to the and who didn t benefited from experience in managing european funds. The experience in developing the conformity analysis procedures of the financing requests, evaluation - selection, approval of payments and project control, has allowed on one hand the speeding-up of the ending process for all the procedures necessary for the implementing of measures, easening also the path for improving and simplifying these procedures, compared to those applied under the SAPARD Programme. Also, the accreditation of the Paying Agency has represented a process without major delays, given the previous experience regarding the achivement of accreditation criteria. Having in regard the above mentioned information, we mention that the beneficiaries of the new rural development programme benefits from superior services of assistance during the structuring and on-going of the projects, compared to the SAPARD Programme beneficiaries. Furthermore, following the SAPARD experience, was imposed to continue the measures which led to the increase of Community funds absorption, namely the Farmer Programme which represented a stimulus both for the beneficiaries by subsidizing the credit interests as well as for the banks by guarantying the rural credits. The current experience of the SAPARD Programme has shown the fact that the necessary financing for beneficiaries of investment projects developed within the rural area, has encountered difficulties following the lack of own financing resources, of granting conditions for credits imposed by commercial banks regarding the ensurance of required guarantees, as well as from the reticence of banks of financing investments within the sector. The experience from the SAPARD Programme implementation shows the necessity of providing to the beneficiaries of certain co-financing facilities and uptaking the risk through financial engineering operations, as well as lifting unnecessary restrictions identified as limitative causes for fund absorption. Thus, for NRDP were set up in 2010 two guarantee schemes with financing from EAFRD: guarantee scheme for agriculture which provides guarantees for credits for the beneficiaries of measure 121 Modernisation of agricultural holdings and 123 Adding value to agricultural and forestry products, for the activities covered by art. 36 of the Treaty establishing the European Union, and the guarantee scheme for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) which 5

6 provides guarantees for the SME beneficiaries of measures 312 Support for the creation and development of microenterprises, 313 Encouragement of tourism activities and the component of measure 123 covered by the state aid schemes. Also, having in regard the accumulated experience, respectively the difficulties of the first implementation period of the SAPARD Programme, namely the rigid procedures and the complexity of procedure requirements faced by potential beneficiaries, it has been decided to simplify the implementation process by simplifying the justifying documents needed at project submission as well as the implementation of the NRDP on three level: central, regional and county/local (for measures with payments on area), where the direct contact with beneficiaries is ensured. These achievement and output indicators collected on the SAPARD programme implementation were used in the programming to define average unit investment costs for various types of projects under the relevant measures. This means that experiences from the SAPARD Programme was used in order to define more precisely the quantification of targets at the operational level in particular and at the specific level where possible. The experience was used to improve the links between the experienced project unit investment costs, the quantified targets and the financial allocations for the individual measures. Regarding the continuing of the improvement process and marketing of agricultural and fishery products, the increase of products quality following the appliance of competitive technologies, diversifying agricultural and forestry activities, development of economical, organic and social functions of the forests in rural areas, improvement of infrastructure from rural area, vocational training of agricultural, forestry and fishery producers, as well as providing technical assistance services, the measures within the SAPARD Programme were continued within the new programme corresponding to the programming period Thus, in establishing the maximum threshholds of support and the eligible expenditures for some of the NRDP measures, was taken into account the SAPARD experience. Following a profound analysis of the existing state, the absorption policy for European funds corresponding to rural development within was focused on the following pillars, having as starting point the lessons learnt from the SAPARD Implementation: Identifying efficient solutions of legislative and institutional nature in order to resolve the problems concerning the ensurance of private co-financing; Identifying and support of potential beneficiaries; Improvement of the Programme s implementation system; Increase of the visibility level of the Programme in target areas; Identifying efficient solutions in order to resolve issues connected to lack of consultancy. 4. To what extent has SAPARD contributed to supporting capacity building activities, and encouraged implication of a broad range of public and in particular private bodies in the design and implementation of the programme? Limited information can be only found in the chapter 5.1 Implementation of the Programme: actors involved, institutional context Concerning "to what extent has SAPARD contributed to supporting capacity building activities, and encouraged implication of a broad range of public in particular private bodies, this issue is addressed in detail on Annex 2 regarding the analysis of the measure 4.2 which also contribute in terms of communications campaign direct to potential beneficiaries and populations to be aware of the EU policies. Also the answer to Common Evaluation Question J2 estimates the contribution of SAPARD to a wide involvement of potential stakeholders in design and implementation of the activity foreseen. 6

7 The Evaluator has concluded, that the technical assistance initiatives, including especially the information actions concerning the Programme, have contributed, in a great extent, to the improvement of the knowledge of the rural population and of the authorities responsible for the EU procedures, rules and principles, especially concerning SAPARD. At length, the Evaluator has estimated that around 23% of the population engaged in agriculture, forestry and hunting, at the end of 2006 (around 2.5 million persons based on NIS data) have been informed through information campaigns organized with technical assistance. This estimation is based on the following aspects: each of the two information initiatives through TV spots, radio and written press has had an audience of over one million persons each and over 82 thousand persons have participated in information events organized through the country, which means a total audience of over 2.4 million persons; to this number, the percentage of the rural population afferent to year 2006, namely 45% was added and to the result, the percentage of 52.5%, representing the percentage of farmers and qualified workers in agriculture, forestry and fishing for 2006, was added (NIS, Statistic Yearbook for 2007). Thus resulted a number of more than 577,000 farmers informed through information campaigns organized by technical assistance, representing around 23% from the population engaged in agriculture in the reference year (2006). Also, the Evaluator may not assert much about the tendency in the distribution of information instruments (such as: brochures, conferences, training courses, etc.) as: this tendency is difficult to quantify, due to the fact that do not exist an exact summarization of the information initiatives concerning EU policies for rural development carried out before 2004; the technical assistance actions, in this regard, have been totally complementary to other actions which have already been carried out by Managing Authority with the support of regional and local structures. Considering these two elements, as well as the ones from above, the Evaluator asserted that the information actions promoted by technical assistance have contributed, in an extensive measure, to the knowledge of the rural population, concerning EU rural policies, especially due to the chosen information instruments, which relied very much on the use of mass communication media, such as television or written press, but also on the use of communication instruments characterized through the capillarity of information (caravans, organization of local events, participation in local fairs, etc. ). To these reasons, considering information initiatives, we may add the fact that 70% of the technical assistance projects (meaning all the projects, except for two dealing with the evaluation of the Programme and the technical assistance Programme for the organization of the Monitoring Committee) have dealt in one way or another, with the problems related to the "acquis communautaire" in the field of agriculture and rural development. Starting with 2007, the institutions involved within the implementation of the SAPARD Programme (MA and PARDF) managed in parallel the SAPARD Programme and NRDP Following the modifications involving, in particular, the transfer of the Managing Authority within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the restructuring of the SAPARD Agency in order to ensure the functioning independence between the authorities responsible for the managing of the Programme s financial system, the entire system of management and control of the Programme has shown a bigger organizing capacity which coincided with the speeding-up of the Programme s financial performance and with the achievement of more projects, according to the social-economic context of the country. 7

8 Also, on the basis of the SAPARD experience the system was improved in order to ensure an increased capacity of managing EU funds dedicated to agriculture and rural development during the programming period Thus, the Romanian public administration accepted the challenge regarding decentralized managing of the Programme, launched by the European Union, showing that in time it has acquired the necessary abilities to ensure the efficiency of managing and implementing the National Rural Development Programme, by a solid and sustainable institutional structure, with the main office in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and operational in PARDF and PIAA (APIA). The institutional system and clear establishing of the role for the authorities responsible for the managing and implementing of projects is the most important factor in the management of projects. A too centralized system for managing and implementing pre-adhesion programmes has created blocks many times in the decision making process, causing many delays in implementing the projects and resulting in a low absorbtion of the funds. All these issues had been taken into account while establishing the implementing system for the post-adhesion funds and was organized a decentralized system for implemening the NRDP. The SAPARD contributed to the awareness of the role that economic and social partners have in monitoring the implementing of the Programme and dissemination of information to the potential beneficiaries by the members of NRDP Monitoring Committee. The efficient dissemination of information regarding the available SAPARD funds and the possibilities of accessing the Programme, was performed mainly by the PARDF, through the Promotion, Communication and Mass-Media Relations Directorate. The communication and promotion of the SAPARD Programme consisted in concrete actions of dissemination of information regarding the conditions of accessing the measures financed under the Programme, as follows: Organizing national and regional conferences for the promotion of the Programme; Elaboration and distribution of informative materials: applicant s guideline, brochures, posters; Developing two promotion campaigns of the Programme; Organizing press conferences and releasing press releases; Participating at promotion and awareness events. Concerning the Monitoring Committee for the SAPARD Programme, it represented a collective body formed by representatives of the ministries and other public authorities, as well as of some professional associations or non-governmental organizations. Within the Committee were present, as observers, also officials of the European Commission. The Monitoring Committee for the SAPARD Programme was formed under the Prime Minister s Decision no. 271 of May 4 th The Chairman function of the Monitoring Committee was held by the Ministry of European Integration (2001-april 2004), the Ministry of Public Finances (aprilseptember 2004) and subsequently by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (September 2004-present). During the seventeen reunions of the SAPARD Programme Monitoring Committee organized between , was analysed the progress of the SAPARD Programme implementation and taken decisions for improving the implementing and avoiding blocks which could have had negative impact in fund absorbtion. During the years, in the activity of the Committee was noticed a better understanding of the private partners role in implementing the Programme, a pro-active involvement in improving the structure and measures implementing mechanisms and also in disseminating information towards the sectors they represent. 8