91998E0396

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0396/98 by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Commission (24 February 1998)

Subject: Assistance for frontier regions

Austria, as the country with the longest common frontier with the countries applying for Community membership, will have to cope directly with the new circumstances created by Europe's enlargement to the East. That is one reason why there is increasingly vocal support in Austria for demands for special assistance to compensate the frontier regions for the problems they are expected to face.

Has Austria officially requested the European Union for special assistance for its frontier regions?

What are the Commission's views and position on this subject?

What form does the Commission consider any such assistance to the frontier regions might take?

What level of funding would be envisaged?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (18 March 1998)

The Austrian authorities have presented a paper to the Commission proposing a special programme for assistance to regions of the Community bordering the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs).

Regions bordering the CEECs may feel the impact of the opening of markets and of enlargement more quickly and intensively than other regions, but they will also benefit from their closeness to new markets providing new opportunities. The importance of these new markets for Community producers is evidenced by the rapid growth in trade between the Community and the CEECs and the increasing surplus of the Community's trade balance with them. While wages in CEECs are significantly below Austrian levels, this is not reflected directly in the cost of products, since the productivity of Austrian workers may be expected to be higher. Furthermore, the impact of enlargement, in particular in sensitive areas, will be softened through transitional arrangements.

Many of the border regions are already assisted by the structural funds. The new German Länder and Burgenland are at present, and are likely to remain, objective 1 regions. Most of the other border regions in Germany, Austria and Italy currently receive assistance under objective 5b. Given that under the new objective 2, it is foreseen that the Member States will be able to present national criteria for the selection of a significant share of their assisted areas, they can include border areas if they consider them to face specific problems.

Furthermore, the Commission proposes to maintain the Community initiative Interreg which, together with the PHARE-cross border cooperation (CBC) programme, is an appropriate instrument for addressing the problems of the border regions with the CEECs. The specific design of Interreg for the new programming period has not been decided, but it will leave sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of the border regions, as the Member States may propose the regions to be covered and the projects to be supported.

Thus, while border regions will be particularly affected by enlargement of the Community, the structural policy instruments proposed in 'Agenda 2000' ((COM(97) 2000. )) provide sufficient scope and flexibility to address these issues.