TI Lithuania concluds the ‘Transparency Though Awareness” project with two conferences

Conference
“How and where will we use EU aid in 2007-2013?”
4 April 2006

At the conference, “How and where will we use EU aid in 2007-2013?” held in the Palace of the President of Lithuania, NGOs proposed to introduce legal provisions that would establish clear priorities, aims and goals for EU financial support allocation, to allow social partners to participate in the meetings of project selection committees, to make support allocation procedures public and to present the public with all information related to the allocation of financial support and thus, disperse any accusations of corruption and abuse of office.
When greeting the participants of the conference that featured a discussion between Lithuanian NGOs and heads of responsible administrative institutions on transparency and effectiveness of EU support allocation, the head of Transparency International’s Lithuanian Chapter (TILS), Rytis Juozapavičius, presented the results of a survey conducted by the Internet portal www.visuomenei.lt. According to the survey, 51 per cent of public servants and 52 per cent of citizens have heard ‘something’ about national priorities for allocation of EU structural funds. At the same time, 17 per cent of the Lithuanian public and 9 per cent of public servants believe that corrupt deals are likely when it comes to EU aid allocation priorities.

‘”While analyzing EU support allocation mechanisms together with other non-governmental organizations, we get the impression that a part of the political elite, a small but prominent group of servants responsible for EU funds allocation, a part of lobbyists seeking EU funding and dishonest project organizers do not want the public to know everything about the EU support”’ said Juozapavičius, commenting on 2007-2013 EU aid allocation principles. “This is the reason why Lithuanian NGOs have identified the problem at hand and propose tested EU methods to ensure transparency and effectiveness of EU financial aid allocation. We should not forget it is 36 billion Litas we are talking about.”

According to Ramūnas Vilpišauskas, the adviser to the Lithuanian President, it is essential that financial aid that arrives in Lithuania is distributed in a transparent and impartial way. “It is just as important for state institutions to set clear EU aid priorities and envisaged results and systematically pursue them” commented R. Vilpišauskas on the NGO initiative. “The expediency of EU support and transparency of its allocation should become the most important priorities when implementing the program of 2007-2013 EU financial support to Lithuania”. The adviser to the president also pointed out that the interest of the civil society in the processes taking place in Lithuania is very welcome: “Institutions responsible for EU aid allocation are obliged to present potential aid recipients with all information possible and should not ignore the public need for precise and transparent information”.

NGOs propose to introduce legal acts that would clearly set out priorities, aims, planned results and criteria for EU financial support, on the basis of which it would be possible to compare actual results with the planned ones. It is recommended that intervention fields that belong to the knowledge society action program, such as those of the countryside diversification or educational establishments, would be prioritized, while development of education and science infrastructure would receive no less than 10 per cent.

Darius Kuolys, the director of the Civil Society Institute, stated that social partners should be included in the discussion on the processes EU funds allocation. This would make up for the lack of transparency and impartiality of EU aid allocation procedures. NGOs also propose to set clear rules for submission and evaluation of complaints. They also believe that institutions responsible for aid allocation should actively cooperate with applicants. According to D. Kuolys, “By including social partners in EU aid allocation procedures, such institutions would create a more transparent process and avoid the accusations of corruption and abuse of office. Maybe we should ask why is it that at the moment they do everything in their power to avoid such dialogue?”

As TILS director R. Juozapavičius pointed out, it is essential that next to structural changes, the society would be presented with detailed information about project selection and evaluation without hiding behind the curtain of confidentiality: “Most of the respondents surveyed believe that the greatest chances for corruption lie in evaluation and nomination of the winner of the bid. Can you ever get the minutes of the selection committee meetings? I am not even bringing your attention to the fact that the public does not know who and based on what criteria evaluates the allocation of funds that are meant for all of us.” According to R. Juozapavičius, informing the society is the most expensive tool but until now it has been the most effective. He suggested that only in such way it is possible to disperse negative evaluations of EU financial aid allocation that prevails in the public and increasingly frequent stories by businessmen who experienced corrupt practices in competitions for EU financial support.

The conference was organized under the aegis of the President of Lithuania and featured reports by the ministers of the Ministries of Finance, Social Security and Labor, Education and Science, representatives of other state institutions, businessmen, and members of academia working with the issues of EU aid allocation.

TILS initiative to increase transparency of distribution of EU financial support is supported by more than 80 non-governmental organizations. A couple of months ago Lithuanian NGOs presented the Government with a petition for greater transparency of EU funds allocation supported by more than 41 500 Lithuanian citizens. However, the proposal to make the strategy for aid implementation more detailed did not receive the support from the Government. To offer citizens the chance to directly contact institutions responsible for EU aid allocation, a special inquiry system was set up on the website of civil organizations www.visuomenei.lt.

Conference
“How to save EU support from suspicions of corruption?”
27 April 2006

The conference featured various governmental institutions responsible for EU funds administration, NGO representatives and legal experts who discussed concrete instruments to increase transparency of EU support allocation.

Following the conference and results of the discussion , "Transparency International" Lithuanian Chapter (TILS) set out the following recommendations:

1.To establish clear rules for participation of social, economic and regional (SRE) partners in the meetings of project selection committees. To establish when they vote, when they recede from voting and when they participate as observers. To explain to the public why a particular social partners were invited to the meetings of project selection committees.

2.To make minutes of the meetings of project selection committees public. To announce all information related to the argumentation for aid allocation. To make all information regarding project evaluation process public: both detailed project evaluation procedure and evaluation decision argumentation.

3.Lithuania has an EU structural and cohesion funds’ computerized information management and monitoring system. We propose to extend the access to the system to a wider range of the Lithuanian public.

4.To submit information about all individuals who receive EU aid foragriculture purposes in the form of direct payments and compensations.

5.To establish the rules for participation of NGO representatives as observers in the meetings of the Governmental structural aid monitoring committee.

6.To establish the rules, which are based on objective and clear selection criteria, for certification of projects of national importance to receive EU structural funds.

7.To prompt the professional community of consultants working in the field of EU aid to establish some sort of independent consultant “association”, which would conduct accredited education about structural funds and promote a common code of conduct. At the same time, institutions responsible for project selection procedure should actively cooperate with the applicants, so that they could get a better understanding of the value of the service provided by so-called “euroconsultants”.

8.To strengthen the autonomy of managing institutions. Intermediary institutions should be left responsible only for EU support planning and implementation monitoring, while managing authorities should be delegated all activities associated with project evaluation and monitoring of aid implementation.

9.To strengthen the monitoring of conduct of assessors and employees of EU aid administrative institutions by upgrading their codes of conduct, declaration of interests, and by inviting civil society representatives into monitoring of work ethics.

10.It is essential to substantially strengthen the protection of whistleblowers that report about possible illegal activities at work.