Dieser Bericht, der von Petra Cerna verfasst und vom Institut für Europäische Politik EUROPEUM veröffentlicht wurde, beschreibt und bewertet die Entwicklung des SAPARD-Programms in der Tschechischen Republik. Es handelt sich hierbei um ein EG-Programm für Landwirtschaft und ländliche Entwicklung zur Vorbereitung des EU-Beitritts. Ziel ist eine umfassende Überprüfung der Erfolge und Mängel der Durchführung von SAPARD in der Tschechischen Republik.
1. Executive summary
As the launch of the SAPARD Programme was originally planned for 2000, the first seminars in the framework of an information campaign dedicated to final beneficiaries and administrators took part already by the end of 1998. Nevertheless, due to the uncompleted process of establishing of the SAPARD Agency (SA) postponed for the 1 September 2001 as well as to an essential delay in the adoption of the legislation its launch had to be delayed for the 15 April 2002. SA was directly subordinated to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) whereas the responsibility for the Programme implementation was shared between the MoA and the Ministry for Rural Development (MRD). Even though the publicity campaign has been very successful and the promotion material was of high quality many applicants were obliged to find other sources of project financing in regard to the time delay between promotion and implementation.
Since the accreditation to the SA was not attributed in 2001, firstly, a consultation test round has been carried out by RO SA helping the applicants to elaborate their projects, secondly, in June 2001 the TEST Programme fully financed from national sources was launched by the MRD. Since 2002, 6 rounds for receipt of applications on agricultural measures and measures on rural development have been declared as well as 5 rounds in 2003 for the measure on vocational training. The majority of funds allocated have been used for agricultural measures while solely one third of funds have been allocated in the rural development. The latter have been exhausted during the first three rounds. In December 2002, an extraordinary flood round was opened exclusively for the farmers affected by the August floods. The successfulness in the first round was in the case of the agricultural measures about 90% whereas in the second round it was solely 60% due to increasing competition. On the contrary, the demand under the measures on rural development exceeded continuously five times the volume of allocated funds and the successfulness remained constantly very low. Furthermore, there was a systematic difference monitored in terms of number of projects submitted between counties with high level of activity resulting from high share of agricultural land such as Southern Bohemia and those with relatively low performance such as industrial Northern Bohemia. The allocated funds have been exhausted by 100% and even an overcommitment of 15% have been made.
As far as the agricultural measures under Priority 1 are concerned, the strategy of MoA was to reduce as much as possible the scope of eligible expenditures in order to satisfy at least the crucial needs of this sector from the limited budget. In general, the implementation of Priority 1 turned out very effective and efficient, the investments in agricultural holdings led to increased quality of products and thanks to the support a majority of the beneficiaries are in compliance with the EU standards. Positive effects have been also monitored in terms of more rationalized use of production factors, improved product quality, decreased production costs and created job due to the support. However, the investments were focused rather on a short-term survival of the primary production in the perspective of the EU membership than on a sustainable increase in competitiveness. Concerning the measures on rural development (2.1, 2.2), the absence of a tighter delimitation of eligibility expenditures resulted in an excess of applications of which only about 22% were approved. The support had very positive effects in terms of increasing the quality of life for the local population, preservation of rural heritage, creating of new jobs opportunities and the development of existing SME and thus the sustainable development of rural areas. Nevertheless, as only few projects on agri-tourism, on regional non-agricultural products and on production of alternative energy sources have been supported, the financed projects have not much attributed to the diversification of farm activities. Furthermore, under the Priority 2 the measure 2.3 on agricultural environmentally friendly production has been designed in a very complex way in order to test specific management practices tailored to the needs of each area selected. A considerably low participation in some pilot areas resulted from the lack of experiences concerning the implementation of more complex land management among local authorities and farmers. As the potential scale of agri-environmental activities in the Czech Republic is quite large it is not evident weather 5 pilot areas projects could have provided sufficient experience for implementing of HRDP. Finally, in the framework of the third priority, a measure on vocational training has been implemented in 2003 by the Institute of Agricultural and Food Information. Due to relatively unfavourable conditions for training bodies and high administrative requirements solely a half of announced themes have been covered. Nevertheless, the organized seminars were in general very successful. The last implemented measure on technical assistance assuring improvement of the Programme in terms of monitoring and evaluation contributed, on one hand, essentially to the facilitation of Programme´s activities, on the other hand a cross-cutting approach has been missing, in particular as regards the monitoring.
Regarding the small amount of funds allocated for SAPARD the main role of the SAPARD Programme has to been seen in the preparation for set-up of the administration system for Operational Programme Rural Development and Multifunctional Agriculture (OP RDMA) established on the basis of the SAPARD implementation system. After the transition to structural funding the impact of the implementation of the new CAP in the OP will be much more significant. The continuity of personnel and hereby of transmission of achieved experiences and best practices remained in general on both levels, in the regional as well in the national administration. As of the 1st January 2004, the SA has been transferred under the State Agricultural Intervention Fund (SZIF). The transfer of the SA under the SZIF was preceded by an appointment of the Managing Authority for the OP RDMA and it was decided to merge the former SAPARD Programme Managing Authority with this newly established department as of the 1 July 2003. The implementation of the agri-environmental measure has helped essentially with setting up of the implementation of HRDP on the level of programming document.
The Programme has produced a wide range of positive results and impacts, such as increase in productivity and more rational production, increase in income, improved quality of products, positive effects on animal welfare, improved working and health conditions, improved storage capacity, high number of created jobs, partial diversification of rural economy, improved competitiveness and increased activity of existing SME. However, it turned out that the farmers inexperienced in demanding public funds had been often discouraged by the volume of information required to accompany an application for projects of any size. Thus in the case of small-sized projects the volume of requirements did not correspond to the risks associated with the granting of aid. It turned out that the implementing system favoured systematically projects submitted by big agricultural co-operatives whereas projects of smaller operators whose technical level and human resources do not meet the Programme´s requirements were missing. Furthermore, the unwillingness of banks to offer loans to private entrepreneurs, especially in agriculture, was partially broken down in the course of the Programme. In spite of the fact that the measure on rural development focused also on start-up of new businesses and diversification of farm income, the realized diversification of farmer’s activities and rural tourism each accounts for less than 10 %. Concerning the Programme´s administration, it has been set up in compliance with the EU requirements and it has turned out very effective. Nevertheless, the scoring system as well as the controls has been focused rather on administrative compliance and verification than on quality criteria and the administrative procedures were elaborated too complex hindering often an effective implementation. The co-operation with administrators at regional level was assessed by beneficiaries as excellent whereas typical was the unwillingness of state authorities, especially of the higher ones, to assume full responsibility and to communicate the up-to-date conditions and rules, that changed perpetually in the course of the Programme, to the beneficiaries.
To conclude, as the large processing holdings or cooperatives are narrowly specialized in large-scale production, alternative incomes through extension of farming activities should be ensured by supporting of SME. Therefore the administrative procedure for small-scale projects should be simplified and it is to introduce a simpler system in addition to the current one. As a model should be provided a very simple small project, simplified should be also the assessment of the financial health. Furthermore, the state authorities should certify a certain number of consultants defined by an authorization for consultancy activities in order ensure the protection of beneficiaries of public funds. To prevent the unnecessary excess of demand increasing the risks of applicants and discouraging small operators, the monitoring of planned investment projects in the regions should be ensured in order to allow to design a measure better-aimed on real regional priorities. The scoring criteria should be focused more on the individual quality of projects than on the maximal compliance with listed items in order to avoid the prioritization of projects with a lower marginal utility than projects not selected. Moreover, the rural development should be more interconnected with the diversification of agricultural activities by means of a co-operation of mayors with farmers and the projects should express an essential interest of the concerned municipalities on the project implementation improving the live conditions and co-operation within microregions. More accent should also be put on the bottom-up approach and the inclusion of the rural dwellers and socio-economic partners in the decision-making process as well as on the improvement on the information dissemination on agri-environmental issues.