Malta - Regional Policy

Short-term priorities:

Assessment (November 2003)

Please refer to the fact sheets on the adoption of the Community acquis.

Medium-term priorities:

• drawing up a national economic and social cohesion policy designed to reduce internal disparities, prepare for the implementation of the Structural Funds and create evaluation structures.

Assessment (November 2001)

Malta has not drawn up a national development plan for economic and social cohesion. However, preliminary steps have been taken to set up the administrative structures needed to implement the Structural Funds.

Assessment (October 2002)

Malta has made significant progress in its preparations to implement a policy aimed at reducing regional disparities. As regards territorial organisation, a NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Statistical Units) classification is in place: the country has been designated as a single region at NUTS levels I and II, and two regions at NUTS level III (Malta on the one hand, and Gozo and Comino on the other hand). The Regional Policy Directorate, directly attached to the Prime Minister's Office, will be the managing authority, and the International Relations Directorate of the Ministry of Finance has been designated as the paying authority. These management structures have been strengthened with significant numbers of extra staff and have received general and specific training, some of which took place abroad. With regard to programming, Malta is finalising its national development plan for 2003-06 and has started drafting its single programming document (SPD). In April 2002, a special needs assessment study for Gozo was prepared, which will serve as the basis for formulating a separate priority in the SPD. In order to ensure that the partnership principle is applied, sectoral working groups have been set up. In the field of monitoring and evaluation, the Inter-Ministerial Committee will ensure coordination among the ministries and will act as the main Monitoring Committee. No significant developments can be reported with regard to legislation, financial management and control, or statistics.

Malta has provisionally closed negotiations on the regional policy chapter without requesting any transitional arrangements. Generally speaking, its preparation for implementing an economic and social cohesion policy is well advanced. In order to comply fully with the requirements of the Community acquis, progress is still necessary in strengthening its administrative capacity and allocating tasks in the institutional structures which will be responsible for managing the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. Malta also needs to improve its programming capacity and the technical preparation of future projects eligible for assistance (project pipeline). As regards partnership, the sub-committee of the Council for Economic and Social Development needs to be made operational. To guarantee monitoring and evaluation in line with the acquis requirements, continued efforts are needed for the ex-ante evaluation of the SPD, to define the monitoring indicators and collect statistics. Otherwise, as far as financial management and control are concerned, Malta is well advanced in finalising the specific procedures for control, auditing, certification of expenses and correction of irregularities. The Internal Audit and Investigations Directorate, directly attached to the Prime Minister's Office, is an independent body charged with assessing the use of the Structural and Cohesion Funds. In the budgetary field, Malta has a system of three-year rolling business plans, which is flexible enough to transfer allocations between Funds and priorities. Malta still needs to improve its system for collecting and processing statistical information.

Assessment (November 2003)

Please refer to the fact sheets on the adoption of the Community acquis.

Following the signing of the Accession Treaty on 16 April 2003, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia acceded to the European Union on 1 May 2004.

REFERENCES

Decision 2000/249/EC of 20.03.2000Official Journal L 78, 29.03.2000

Commission Report COM(2001) 700 final - SEC(2001) 1751Not published in the Official Journal

Commission Report COM(2002) 700 final - SEC(2002) 1407Not published in the Official Journal

Commission Report COM(2003) 675 final - SEC(2003) 1206Not published in the Official Journal

Treaty of Accession to the European Union [Official Journal L 236, 23.09.2003]

Last updated: 19.11.2004