July 31st, 2009

EU-funded city development projects hampered by red tape

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Billions of forints have been allocated to eight Hungarian cities under a city development programme funded by the European Union which started 18 months ago, but city leaders are critical of the scheme, business daily Vilaggazdasag said on Friday.

So far, 81 billion forints (EUR 302 million) has been ploughed into the project dubbed Polus.

The head of the programme office Zita Zombori told the paper that results will be visible in three or four years. She said the programme had been successful in setting up the initial clusters of applicants, as well developing the appropriate business environment.

The aim of the project is to support local businesses and organizations such as universities in order to enhance each city’s competitiveness, as well as devolving power away from the country’s over-dominant capital.

But the mayors of the cities involved told the paper that the programme was hampered by the generally poor experience of cooperation projects in Hungary, overcomplicated tender procedures and excessive red tape.

The cities included in the project are Budapest, Debrecen, Gyor, Miskolc, Pecs, Szeged and Veszprem which has teamed up with Szekesfehervar for the scheme.

The total value of Polus support granted for economic development so far is above 75 billion forints; this is expected to rise to 145.5 billion forints by the end the current budgeting period of 2007-13, Zombori said.

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  1. Almaspite says:
    August 1, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    EU-funded programmes are a waste of time. “Excessive red tape”, and applicants ignorance on how to deal with the mountain of paperwork, and
    rules governing allocation of loans/grants will
    ensure that Universities and other established institutions will be the only beneficiaries.
    Those out of work and entrepeneurs wishing to set up small/medium-size businesses will be found “wanting” in every sense of the word.
    As we know from previous experience large sums of
    money can “disappear” in Hungary before we can
    say either Gyurscany Ferenc or, Ildiko Lendvai!

  2. Anonymous says:
    August 1, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    Sounds like another pile of half-baked crap cooked-up by the idiotic EU. Good thing that only some of the EU-kind of overtaxed Europeans would fall for such obvious Big Brother schemes any more.