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Substantial Community assistance is already being provided to the candidate countries to help them develop adequate administrative capacity to implement and enforce the acquis. Altogether up to two thirds of national PHARE programmes has been earmarked for institution building and related investment. Programming has been accelerated and national annual assistance programmes should be adopted much earlier in 2002 than in previous years.
Moreover, the Commission will, over and above the yearly budgetary envelope identified in 1999 for each of the 10 PHARE countries, allocate up to EUR 250 million from the existing PHARE programme to additional institution building efforts in 2002. This supplementary institution building facility constitutes an offer to candidate countries that should be taken up and programmed by Summer 2002. Similar weight could, if necessary, be put on the allocation of the preaccession assistance for institution building in the case of Malta and Cyprus.
The Commission will analyse with the candidate countries the need to continue with additional institution building efforts in the 2003 programming exercise. Institution building projects could then, under the usual Commission rules on contracting and disbursement, continue on the ground at least for three more years.
These efforts are supplementary to the major efforts each candidate country is making, often assisted by PHARE and by bilateral actions of the Member States, international organisations and international financial institutions.
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