Letter from the Department for International
Development
1999 PRELIMINARY
DRAFT BUDGET:
TACIS
During the Sub Committee's Examination of Witnesses
on 3 June 1998, the Chairman asked about the budget for the democracy
programme under TACIS, which she understood to have been cut.
Mark Lowcock undertook to provide additional information on this
point.
2. There are several budget lines available
to the Newly Independent States covered by TACIS. The main one,
and the largest, is B7-520, assistance for economic reform and
recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia. This line
has historically under-spent and there is a large overhang of
commitments which cannot be translated into payments because of
absorptive capacity in the recipient countries and administrative
capacity in the Commission. Because of our focus on effectiveness,
and our belief that budgets should better reflect what can actually
be spent, we have supported the small cuts proposed by the Commission
in the 1999 Preliminary Draft Budget. This does not necessarily
mean that spending will fall, just that what is in the budget
should correspond more closely with what can actually be spent.
3. There are other budget lines which fund transfrontier
co-operation and rehabilitation and reconstruction measures. These
have been cut (in the case of transfrontier co-operation by one
third) but funding for rehabilitation and reconstruction is available
from a more general line and of course from the emergency aid
line in case of need. DFID is concerned that the Community should
focus its resources on the poorest countries and we have therefore
supported increases of 70 per cent to budget line B7-5310 which
provides exceptional assistance to Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan,
the poorest TACIS countries. We are negotiating with the Commission
a way of delivering exceptional assistance to Azerbaijan.
4. There are a group of budget lines supporting
human rights and democracy which are geographically divided. For
the sake of transparency and budget rationalisation, the UK has
consistently argued that all countries should have equal access
to one line for this purpose. There is a budget line which covers
assistance towards democracy in the Newly Independent States and
Mongolia. In the Commission's proposals for the 1999 budget, this
line has remained at its 1998 level. In addition, most TACIS countries
have access to the general human rights and democracy budget line
for developing countries (which the UK supports); and all TACIS
countries benefit from the Community's support to NGOs supporting
human rights and its support for the International Criminal Court.
5. At present, as Mark Lowcock explained during
the Examination of Witnesses, the budget for 1999 is only in its
preliminary draft form. It still has to go twice to the European
Parliament and be approved by the Council. It is therefore possible
that the amounts available to TACIS countries will change as a
result of further discussion.
26 June 1998
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