CR's drawing of EU funds is slow - experts

The Czech Republic's drawing of EU funds within the current 2014-2020 programming period is slow and the government did not learn much from the previous cabinet's mistakes, most experts approached by CTK agreed.

Experts saw as a positive that in the end the Czech Republic managed to draw roughly 96 percent of subsidies within the 2007-2013 programming period, even though there was a threat of much bigger losses.

The current cabinet inherited a number of problems from the previous one, however, it did not make a big progress in dealing with them.

At the end of July, the Czech Republic had 33.6 percent of European subsidies within the 2014-2020 programming period secured by contracts, representing Kc199.2bn out of the total amount of Kc593.1bn allocated for the country.

The country was finishing drawing funds from the previous programming period in 2015. The last-minute drawing led to an economic performance inequality, especially in construction, UniCredit Bank analyst Pavel Sobisek said.

Bohuslav Cizek of the Confederation of Industry said it is positive that the current government managed to almost finish drawing money from the previous period, however, the attempt to do so hampered the start of the current one. Problems such as non-functioning system and delays in evaluation occurred, he said.

The Chamber of Commerce is very disturbed by the status of funds drawing within the 2014-2020 period. The delay is not smaller than in the previous period and such a development suggests that at the end of the current period, Czech GDP will get a bigger growth impulse than in 2015, which is not good, as funds should be drawn evenly, Ladislav Mincic of the Chamber of Commerce said.

CSOB analyst Petr Dufek said that the Czech Republic does not excel at financing projects using subsidies. Drawing of money is incredibly slow, which is a problem of domestic bureaucracy in the long run, Dufek stated.

According to the Association of Building Entrepreneurs president Vaclav Matyas, larger projects, mainly in the transport infrastructure, are not prepared in sufficient amount, which is why massive drawing can be expected in 2018.

Drawing of funds within the 2007-2013 programming period is one of the few merits of the current cabinet in the area of economy, Cyrrus company analyst Lukas Kovanda said.

Source: ČTK