1997 Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund
The 1997 Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund, adopted by the European Commission on 13 October 1998, is now available. The report gives details of funding during 1997, the bulk of which went to managing and checking a large number of projects approved in earlier years. A total of ECU 10.76 billion, during the first five years of the operation of the fund, has been committed in four beneficiary Member States: Spain (55%), Portugal (18%), Greece (18%) and Ireland (9%). A particular feature of 1997 spending was the increase in the proportion of the budget going to environmental projects, meaning that an even balance with transport projects has almost been achieved. Another feature of the year's spending was the increased funding for rail transport. The report gives details of the spending in each country and covers: - Spain, where projects funded included environmental projects to improve the quality of water in the Ebro at Logroño and in the Agra at Pamplona, and transport projects to support the completion of the Rias Bajas motorway in Galicia and the Madrid-Valencia road; - Portugal, where a total of 15 new environmental projects were approved, covering the protection of coastal areas, the disposal of solid waste and waste-water drainage and infrastructure. Support in the transport sector was granted to the new section of the Lisbon-Madrid motorway; - Greece, where a total of 27 environmental projects were approved, including improved systems for waste treatment and water supply in Athens and waste-disposal projects in Thessaloniki and Katerini; - Ireland, which received support for projects to treat water drawn from lakes and rivers and for improvements to the distribution systems in five cities. In the transport sector, support was provided for several projects, including the Dublin ring road.