91998E0840

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0840/98 by José Barros Moura (PSE) to the Commission (26 March 1998)

Subject: Division into regions and the structural funds

The following question has already been put to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Member of the Commission, at a recent meeting of the Economic and Social Committee's Section for Regional Development. I should like to repeat it so that the answer can serve as a basis for discussions in the European Parliament: Given the Commission's avowed intention to withdraw the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region from Objective 1, does it follow that Ireland will also be divided by the Commission into regions, on the basis of the same criteria, so that some of them can remain in Objective 1? In other words, if Ireland remains a single region for the purposes of eligibility for structural fund resources, on what basis is Portugal being divided in this way? What political criterion is involved?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (8 May 1998)

The Commission has proposed that eligibility for objective 1 should continue to be established by reference to a threshold of 75% of Community average gross domestic product (GDP) in PPS (purchasing power standards) at level 2 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS).

The NUTS system was established in the 1970s to provide a single uniform breakdown of territorial units for the production of regional statistics. Since 1988, it has also been used for the classification of regions eligible for objective 1 of the structural funds.

In almost all Member States, the various levels of the NUTS reflect the administrative division of the Member State. Ireland has always been a single NUTS 2 region, while Portugal has consisted of five NUTS 2 regions on the mainland, plus the Azores and Madeira. The NUTS system is generally stable over time, as changes only arise from the alteration of the administrative structure of a Member State. In the absence of such developments, the Commission has no plans to propose changes to the NUTS structure of either Member State.