L'assistance financière à l'Europe centrale et orientale : le programme Phare

Abstract

Financial assistance to central and eastern Europe : the Phare Programme. The G24 assistance effort has been a significant attempt by the industrialised countries to help the transformation of the economies and societies of central and eastern Europe. However the lack of effective coordination between the 24 donors has meant that the impact of the whole effort on the transformation process has only been marginal. The. European Union's assistance has consisted of grants, balance-of-payments loans and structural loans from the European Investment Bank. The most visible element has been the Phare Programme, which has committed around ECU 6,5 billion over the last six years. Whereas other donors are running down their assistance programmes to the region because the first stage of the transformation process is well advanced, the Union's assistance is growing as it prepares to admit the associated countries to membership. An assessment of the Phare Programme has not been completed yet by the European Commission. Although many initiatives have been started in the region by Phare, a provisional assessment suggests that the programme could certainly have been run more efficiently. Many of the problems stem from the multi-national nature of the programme and the desire of the Union's financial control authorities to control expenditure closely. More recently political control has been somewhat reinforced, which again will slow Programme implementation. With accession only a few years away for the most advanced associated countries, it would seem opportune to begin the process of turning Phare into a real pre- accession structural fund. This makes sense from a consideration of the needs of the associated countries and from the point of view of training these countries' administrations to deal with structural funds. While such a proposal will meet opposition from interested parties within and outside the Commission, it would provide more effective assistance at lower administrative cost and would be an important step on the road to enlargement.