Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 of 21 June 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds
Modified by
Council Regulation (EC) No 1447/2001of 28 June 2001amending Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds, 32001R1447, July 21, 2001
Council Regulation (EC) No 1105/2003of 26 May 2003amending Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds, 32003R1105, June 27, 2003
Actconcerning the conditions of accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the European Union is founded, 12003T, September 23, 2003
Council Regulation (EC) No 173/2005of 24 January 2005amending Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds concerning the extension of the duration of the PEACE programme and the granting of new commitment appropriations, 32005R0173, February 2, 2005
Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006of 11 July 2006laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999, 32006R1083, July 31, 2006
Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999of 21 June 1999laying down general provisions on the Structural FundsTHE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 161 thereof,Having regard to the proposal from the CommissionOJ C 176, 9.6.1998, p. 1.,Having regard to the assent of the European ParliamentAssent delivered on 6 May 1999 (not yet published in the Official Journal).,Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social CommitteeOJ C 407, 28.12.1998, p. 74.,Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the RegionsOJ C 373, 2.12.1998, p. 1.,(1)Whereas Article 158 of the Treaty states that, in order to strenghten its economic and social cohesion, the Community shall aim at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions or islands, including rural areas; whereas Article 159 provides for that action to be supported through the Structural Funds, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the other existing financial instruments;(2)Whereas Article 19 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88 of 24 June 1988 on the tasks of the Structural Funds and their effectiveness and on coordination of their activities between themselves and with the operations of the European Investment Bank and the other existing financial instrumentsOJ L 185, 15.7.1988, p. 9. Regulation as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 3193/94 (OJ L 337, 24.12.1994, p. 11)., requires the Council to re-examine that Regulation on the basis of a Commission proposal before 31 December 1999; whereas, in order to improve the transparency of Community legislation, it is desirable to bring together all the provisions concerning the Structural Funds into a single Regulation and to repeal Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88 and Council Regulation (EEC) No 4253/88 of 19 December 1988 laying down provisions for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88 as regards the coordination of the activities of the different Structural Funds, on the one hand, between themselves and with the operations of the European Investment Bank and the other existing financial instruments, on the other handOJ L 374, 31.12.1988, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 3193/94.;(3)Whereas, by virtue of Article 5 of Protocol 6 on special provisions for Objective 6 in the framework of the Structural Funds in Finland and Sweden, attached to the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden, the provisions of that Protocol should be re-examined before the end of 1999, simultaneously with Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88;(4)Whereas in order to increase the concentration and simplify the operation of the Structural Funds the number of priority objectives should be reduced as compared with Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88; whereas those objectives should be redefined as promoting the development and structural adjustment of regions whose development is lagging behind, economic and social conversion of areas facing structural difficulties and adapting and modernising policies and systems of education, training and employment;(5)Whereas in its efforts to strengthen economic and social cohesion the Community also seeks to promote the harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of economic activities, a high level of employment, equality between men and women and a high level of protection and improvement of the environment; whereas those efforts should in particular integrate the requirements of environmental protection into the design and implementation of the operations of the Structural Funds and help to eliminate inequalities and promote equality between men and women; whereas the Funds' operations may also make it possible to combat any discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, disability or age by means in particular of an evaluation of needs, financial incentives and an enlarged partnership;(6)Whereas cultural development, the quality of the natural and the man-made environment, the qualitative and cultural dimension of life and the development of tourism contribute to making regions economically and socially more attractive in so far as they encourage the creation of sustainable employment;(7)Whereas the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is the primary contributor to attaining the objective of promoting the development and structural adjustment of the regions whose development is lagging behind and economic and social conversion of areas facing structural difficulties;(8)Whereas the tasks of the European Social Fund (ESF) should be adjusted in order to take account of and to implement the European employment strategy;(9)Whereas the structural aspects of the common fisheries policy have been integrated as a full structural policy under the rules governing the Structural Funds since 1993; whereas implementation should continue under the Structural Funds through the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG); whereas assistance from FIFG in Objective 1 shall form part of the programming of this Objective and the assistance outside Objective 1 shall be subject to a single programme in each Member State concerned;(10)Whereas the Community has undertaken a reform of the common agricultural policy which includes structural and accompanying measures for promoting rural development; whereas in this context the Guidance Section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) should continue to contribute to attaining the priority objective of the development and structural adjustment of the regions whose development is lagging behind, by improving the efficiency of the structures of production, processing and marketing of agricultural and forest products and developing local potential in rural areas; whereas the EAGGF Guarantee Section contributes to attaining the priority objective of economic and social conversion of areas facing structural difficulties, in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and amending and repealing certain RegulationsOJ L 160, 26.6.1999, p. 80.;(11)Whereas the specific rules applicable to each Fund are to be set out in the implementing Decisions adopted pursuant to Articles 37, 148 and 162 of the Treaty;(12)Whereas the criteria for designating eligible regions and areas should be specified; whereas, to this end, it is appropriate that the identification of the priority regions and areas at Community level should be based on the common system of classification of the regions, referred to as the "Nomenclature of Territorial Statistical Units (NUTS)" established by the Statistical Office of the European Communities in cooperation with the national institutes for statistics;(13)Whereas regions whose development is lagging behind should be defined as those whose per capita GDP is less than 75 % of the Community average; whereas, in order to ensure an effective concentration of assistance, the Commission should apply this criterion strictly, using objective statistical data; whereas the outermost regions and areas with a very low population density covered by Objective 6 as set out in Protocol 6 attached to the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden for the period 1995 to 1999 should also be covered by Objective 1 under this Regulation;(14)Whereas the areas undergoing economic and social conversion should be defined as those which include areas undergoing socio-economic change in the industrial and service sectors, declining rural areas, urban areas in difficulty and depressed areas dependent on fisheries; whereas this assistance should be properly concentrated on the most seriously affected parts of the Community; whereas these areas should be designated by the Commission acting on a proposal from the Member States and in close concertation with them;(15)Whereas, to ensure the Community nature of the operations of the Funds, the areas undergoing socio-economic change in the industrial sector and the declining rural areas should, as far as possible, be designated on the basis of objective indicators defined at Community level; whereas, furthermore, the population covered by this priority objective taken over the Community as a whole, for guidance, should constitute about 10 % of the population of the Community in the case of the industrial areas, 5 % in the case of the rural areas, 2 % in the case of the urban areas and 1 % in the case of the fisheries areas; whereas, in order to ensure that each Member State makes a fair contribution to the overall effort towards concentration, the maximum possible reduction in population covered by Obejctive 2 in 2006, set out in this Regulation, must not exceed one third compared to the coverage under Objectives 2 and 5b in 1999, set out in Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88;(16)Whereas, in the interests of efficient programming, the regions whose development is lagging behind where per capita GDP is less than 75 % of the Community average should be the same as the areas assisted by the Member States pursuant to Article 87(3)(a) of the Treaty and, taking account of any specific measures adopted pursuant to Article 299(2) of that Treaty in favour of the outermost regions (the French overseas departments, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands); whereas, similarly, the areas undergoing economic and social change should correspond to a large extent to the areas assisted by the Member States pursuant to Article 87(3)(c) of the Treaty; whereas the objective of the Community should be to increase consistency at the end of the period 2000 to 2006 by an appropriate effort by Member States with regard to their current situation;(17)Whereas the objective of adapting and modernising policies and systems of education, training and employment is to provide financial assistance in the regions and areas not covered by Objective 1; whereas Objective 3 should also provide a frame of reference to ensure consistency with all operations for human resources in a given Member State;(18)Whereas the ESF assistance within Objective 2 should be the regional and local actions which respond to the specific situation in an Objective 2 area and which are coordinated with the interventions of the other Structural Funds; whereas any ESF contribution to an Objective 2 single programming document must be of sufficient size to justify its separate management, and should therefore not amount to less than 5 % of the total Structural Funds contribution;(19)Whereas the regions covered by a priority objective in 1999 which no longer satisfy the eligibility criteria should receive a gradually declining level of transitional support; whereas this support should be lower in 2000 than in 1999;(20)Whereas there should be provision for allocating shares of the available resources; whereas these resources should be allocated annually, being significantly concentrated on regions whose development is lagging behind, including those receiving transitional support;(21)Whereas total annual receipts in any Member State from Structural Funds under this Regulation — in combination with assistance provided under the Cohesion Fund — should be limited under this general capping dependent on the national absorption capacity;(22)Whereas the Commission should work out indicative allocations of the available commitment appropriations under each of the priority objectives, basing itself on appropriate objective criteria; whereas 4 % of appropriations allocated in this way to the Member States should be allocated by the Commission at the mid-term point; whereas, in recognition of the special efforts for the peace process in Northern Ireland, the PEACE programme should continue up to 2004; whereas a special programme of assistance for the period 2000 to 2006 shall be established for the Swedish NUTS-II regions which are not covered by the list referred to in Article 3(2) and which meet the criteria laid down in Article 2 of Protocol 6 to the Act of Accession for Austria, Sweden and Finland;(23)Whereas 5,35 % of the total commitment appropriations available should be devoted to the Community initatives and 0,65 % to innovative schemes and to technical assistance;(24)Whereas the appropriations available to the Structural Funds should be indexed on a flat-rate basis for programming purposes and, if necessary, a technical adjustment to that indexation should be made before 31 December 2003;(25)Whereas the main principles of the 1988 reform of the Structural Funds should continue to govern the Funds until 2006; whereas, however, experience to date has demonstrated the need for improvements to make these principles simpler and more transparent; whereas effectiveness should in particular be regarded as a fundamental principle;(26)Whereas, if the operations of the Structural Funds are to be effective and transparent, the responsibilities of the Member States and of the Community should be precisely defined; whereas those responsibilities should be specified for each stage of programming, monitoring, evaluation and supervision; whereas, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, and without prejudice to the powers vested in the Commission, implementing and monitoring assistance should be primarily the responsibility of the Member States;(27)Whereas the action of the Community should be complementary to, or intended to contribute to, the action of Member States; whereas, in order to ensure significant added value, partnership should be strengthened; whereas this concerns the regional and local authorities, the other competent authorities, including those responsible for the environment and for the promotion of equality between men and women, the economic and social partners and other competent bodies; whereas the relevant partners shall be associated in the preparation, monitoring and evaluation of assistance;(28)Whereas the programming process should be laid down from original conception to final beneficiary, and should be facilitated in the Member States by broad indicative guidelines drawn up by the Commission on relevant and agreed Community policies in relation to the Structural Funds;(29)Whereas programming should ensure the coordination of the Structural Funds with one another and with the other existing financial instruments and the EIB; whereas that coordination extends to combining grants and loans;(30)Whereas the activities of the Funds and the operations which they help to finance must be compatible with other Community policies and comply with Community legislation, and specific provisions should be laid down; whereas in this field operations to disseminate and exploit the results of research and technological development conducted in the context of the Structural Funds must ensure the protection of rights relating to the obtaining and exploitation of knowledge and be carried out in accordance with Community rules on competition;(31)Whereas simpler criteria and detailed rules for the verification and implementation of the principle of additionality should be laid down;(32)Whereas the system of programming should be simplified by fixing a uniform lifetime for programming of seven years; whereas to that end the forms and number of assistance schemes should be limited and should normally consist of a single integrated assistance for each region, by making single programming documents the norm for the priority objectives and by including major projects and global grants in the other forms of assistance;(33)Whereas, in order to reinforce the integrated approach to development, steps should be taken — with due regard to the specific features of the regions concerned — to ensure consistency between the operations of the various Funds and the Community policies, the strategy for employment, the economic and social policies of the Member States and the regional policies of the Member States;(34)Whereas, in order to speed up and simplify programming procedures, the responsibilities of the Commission should be distinguished from those of the Member States; whereas, therefore, provisions should be made for the Commission, acting on a proposal from the Member States, to adopt the strategies and development priorities that are to govern the programming as well as the size of the financial contribution from the Community, and the implementing arrangements linked to them, while the Member States are to decide on their application; whereas the content of the various forms of assistance should also be specified;(35)Whereas such decentralised implementation of the operations of the Structural Funds by the Member States should provide sufficient guarantees as to the details and quality of implementation, the results of operations and their evaluation and sound financial management and its supervision;(36)Whereas the Commission, in association with the EIB where appropriate, should approve major investment projects whose financial volume exceeds a specified sum with a view to evaluating their impact and the proposed use of Community resources;(37)Whereas there should be provision for operations of Community interest carried out at the initiative of the Commission to supplement those implemented under the priority objectives;(38)Whereas these Community initiatives should concentrate on promoting cross-border, transnational and inter-regional cooperation (Interreg), economic and social regeneration of cities and urban neighbourhoods in crisis (URBAN), both to be financed by the ERDF, rural development (Leader), to be financed by the EAGGF Guidance Section, and the development of human resources in the context of equal opportunities (EQUAL), to be financed by the ESF; whereas the promotion of cross-border cooperation — in particular in the perspective of enlargement, transnational and inter-regional cooperation — takes on particular significance in this context; whereas due attention should be given to cooperation with the outermost regions; whereas it is necessary to reinforce the coordination of cross-border, transnational and inter-regional cooperation with the measures enacted in the context of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89OJ L 375, 23.12.1989, p. 11 (PHARE). Regulation as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 753/96 (OJ L 103, 26.4.1996, p. 5)., Council Regulation (Euratom, EC) No 1279/96OJ L 165, 4.7.1996, p. 1 (TACIS). and Council Regulation (EC) No 1488/96OJ L 189, 30.7.1996, p. 1 (MEDA). Regulation as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 780/98 (OJ L 113, 15.4.1998, p. 2)., especially in view of the enlargement of the European Union and taking account of the Europe-Mediterranean partnership; whereas due account should be taken of the social and vocational integration of asylum seekers in the framework of EQUAL;(39)Whereas the Structural Funds should provide support for studies, pilot projects and exchanges of experience in order to promote innovative approaches and practices through simple and transparent implementation;(40)Whereas, in order to strengthen the leverage effect of Community resources by favouring as far as possible recourse to private sources of financing and to take better account of the profitability of the projects, the forms of assistance available from the Structural Funds should be diversified and the rates of assistance differentiated with a view to promoting the Community interest, encouraging the use of a wide range of financial resources and limiting the contribution of the Funds by encouraging the use of appropriate forms of assistance; whereas, to that end, reduced rates of intervention should be established in the case of investments in forms and infrastructure projects which generate substantial revenue; whereas for the purpose of this Regulation, substantial net revenue should be tentatively defined as revenue higher than at least 25 % of the total cost of the investment concerned;(41)Whereas, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the rules on eligible expenditure should be the relevant national rules where there are no Community rules, although they may be laid down by the Commission where they are clearly needed for the uniform and equitable implementation of the Structural Funds across the Community; whereas, however, the starting and closing dates for the eligibility of expenditure should be defined and it should be stipulated that investment projects may not undergo major modification; whereas consequently, in order to ensure the efficiency and durable impact of the Funds' assistance, all or part of the assistance from a Fund should remain attached to an operation only where its nature or its implementation conditions do not undergo a substantial modification which would result in diverting the assisted operation from its original objectives;(42)Whereas the rules and procedures for making commitments and payments should be simplified; whereas to that end budget commitments should be made once a year in accordance with the multiannual financial perspective and with the financing plan for assistance, whilst payments should be made in the form of an advance followed by the reimbursement of actual expenditure incurred; whereas, in accordance with established case law, any interest earned on the advance payment should be regarded as resources for the Member State concerned, and in order to strengthen the impact of the Funds, it should be allocated to the same purpose as the advance payment itself;(43)Whereas sound financial management should be assured by providing that expenditure is to be duly justified and certified, and by linking payments to compliance with essential responsibilities as to the monitoring of programming, financial controls and the application of Community law;(44)Whereas, to ensure sound management of Community resources, improvements should be made to the forecasting and implementing of expenditure; whereas to that end the Member States should regularly send the Commission their forecasts of the use of Community resources, and any delays in financial implementation should give rise to repayment of advances and to automatic decommitments;(45)Whereas, throughout the transitional period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001, all references to the euro should normally be read as references to the euro as a monetary unit as referred to in the second sentence of Article 2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 974/98 of 3 May 1998 on the introduction of the euroOJ L 139, 11.5.1998, p. 1.;(46)Whereas one way of ensuring that the operations of the Structural Funds are effective is efficient monitoring; whereas monitoring should be improved and responsibilities in this field better defined; whereas, in particular, management functions should be distinguished from monitoring functions;(47)Whereas there should be a single managing authority for each assistance, with defined responsibilities; whereas these responsibilities should primarily include collecting data on outcomes and reporting this data to the Commission, ensuring sound financial implementation, organising evaluations and complying with obligations relating to publicity and Community law; whereas accordingly there should be provision for regular meetings between the Commission and the managing authority to monitor the assistance;(48)Whereas it should be stipulated that the Monitoring Committees are bodies appointed by the Member State supervising assistance, checking on how it is being managed by the managing authority, ensuring compliance with its own guidelines and implementing rules and reviewing evaluations;(49)Whereas indicators and annual reports on implementation are essential for monitoring and should be better defined so as to reflect reliably the progress of assistance schemes and the quality of programming;(50)Whereas, in order to guarantee efficient and correct implementation, the obligations of the Member States should be laid down with regard to management and supervision systems, the certification of expenditure and the prevention, detection and correction of irregularities and of infringements of Community law;(51)Whereas, without prejudice to the Commission's responsibilities for financial control, cooperation between the Member States and the Commission in this regard should be improved, in particular through provision for regular consultations between the Member States and the Commission to consider the measures taken by the Member States and to permit the Commission to request corrective measures where necessary;(52)Whereas the responsibility of the Member States for the pursuit and correction of irregularities and infringements, and that of the Commission where the Member States do not comply with their obligations, should be specified;(53)Whereas the effectiveness and impact of the operations of the Structural Funds also depend on improved and more thorough evaluation; whereas the responsibilities of the Member States and the Commission in this regard and arrangements to ensure the reliability of evaluation should be laid down;(54)Whereas assistance schemes should be evaluated with a view to their preparation, mid-term review and assessment of their impact, and the evaluation process should be incorporated into the monitoring of assistance; whereas to that end the aims and content of each stage of evaluation should be defined, and the evaluation of the situation as regards the social and economic situation, the environment and equality between men and women should be improved;(55)Whereas the mid-term evaluation and the withholding of part of the original appropriations as a reserve enable supplementary funding to be allocated within each Member State on a performance-related basis; whereas such allocations should be based on objective, simple and transparent criteria which reflect efficiency and the quality of management and financial execution;(56)Whereas a report is to be presented every three years on the progress made towards economic and social cohesion, which should include an analysis of the situation of the regions of the Community and their economic and social development;(57)Whereas, in the interests of a good working partnership and the proper promotion of Community assistance, the broadest possible information and publicity about it should be provided; whereas the authorities responsible for managing assistance should be responsible for this aspect and for keeping the Commission informed of measures taken;(58)Whereas rules should be laid down for the operation of the committees called upon to assist the Commission in implementing this Regulation;(59)Whereas detailed transitional provisions should be laid down to allow preparation of new programming immediately on entry into force of this Regulation and to ensure that assistance to Member States is not interrupted pending the production of regional development plans and assistance schemes in accordance with the new system,HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: