Cyprus - 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 policy on economic and social cohesion in order to reduce internal disparities and to prepare for implementing the Structural Funds, including the procedures for drawing up multiannual budgets and the creation of structures for monitoring assessment and evaluation.

Assessment (November 2001)

As regards territorial organisation, the provisional NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Statistical Units) classification was introduced in good time. Cyprus is drawing up a special programme to prepare for the Structural Funds policy of the European Union, covering the implementation of partnership, monitoring, evaluation and statistics.

Assessment (October 2002)

Significant progress has been made in preparing the country to implement the structural policies. As regards territorial organisation, in February 2002, Eurostat accepted Cyprus's proposal regarding the provisional NUTS classification. The whole country is designated as a single unit at NUTS levels I, II and III. The administrative districts are classified at NUTS level IV and municipalities at NUTS level V. The designation of the areas covered by Objective 2 is in process. The overall division of powers regarding the programming and implementation of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund has been approved by the Council of Ministers. The Planning Bureau will be the future Managing Authority for all single programming documents (SPDs), while the Accounting and Financial Services Directorate of the Treasury will become the paying authority. With regard to programming, Cyprus will prepare three SPDs (for Objective 2, Objective 3 and Fisheries), to be submitted to the Commission in March 2003. In April 2002, an inter-ministerial committee for programming and management and a monitoring committee were set up. In March 2002, the Commission approved the first cross border INTERREG 3 programme with Greece. With regard to monitoring and evaluation, the plan for setting up a management system was submitted to the Accession Conference in March 2002. Since January, the Internal Audit Board has been in charge of financial management and control. The compilation of regional statistical data has continued. There has been no progress, however, as regards legislation.

Since 1998, the regional disparities between the northern and southern part of the island have increased. Once a political solution is found to the Cyprus problem, implementation of economic and social cohesion policy will have to work towards reducing the gaps. Accession negotiations on the regional policy chapter (No 21) have been provisionally closed and Cyprus has not requested any transitional periods. In addition to its administrative capacity, progress is needed in the following areas: 1) defining in detail the functions and duties of the established bodies; 2) developing structures, coordination mechanisms and cooperation both among the ministries and with all the potential partners; 3) improving evaluation, in particular ex-ante; 4) strengthening management and control procedures which already perform well; 5) removing problems encountered while setting-up a computerised accounting system; 6) improving the compilation of regional statistics.

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 2000/248/EC, 20.03.2000Official Journal L 78, 29.03.2000

Commission Report COM(2001) 700 final - SEC(2001) 1745Not published in the Official Journal

Commission Report COM(2002) 700 final - SEC(2002) 1401Not published in the Official Journal

Commission Report COM(2003) 675 final - SEC(2003) 1202Not published in the Official Journal

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

Last updated: 19.11.2004