If the sewer is missing, the challenge for benches will not help. Why do we have the Eurofund Desert (interview)
30. May 2025 at 18:20
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Košice overtook Bratislava.
The cities that are most able to draw money from the budget of the European Union also include Košice, Prešov and Bardejov. However, in smaller municipalities that analysts named the « Eurofund Desert », however, they encounter problems when drawing on problems and not only those that they are unable to get to the money. In Transparency International, they looked in more detail on how to use money from the European Union Slovak cities and municipalities.
Several times they have devoted themselves to various cases where problems from public and European money encounter problems. For example, in Jarovnice near Sabinov they build a school from Eurofunds, but it turned out that they do not have completely settled land. Somewhere again, the projects will not be done by the deadline, but they do not want to lose the subsidy, so they do it after it, in bad the weather Or they falsify documentation, as happened in the known case from Raslavice.
Co -atorka analyzes Martina Hilbertová from Transparency International describes that the motto « purpose of holy means » must not be applied when drawing on public funds. « In other words, inefficiency in handling resources or violations of the law cannot be justified by the fact that at the end of the story was also achieved a publicly beneficial goal.
In the interview you will also read:
- Why the problem can be just the project itself,
- As if drawing it would help to connect municipalities,
- Which cities from the east are most successful in the drawing of Eurofunds,
- How can we be inspired by Norway.
What are the Eurofund deserts and where in Eastern Slovakia we would find them?
As the Eurofund Desert, we figuratively identified sites where eurofunds have failed to draw in the past period, or only symbolically in the form of a few thousand euros, for example, for the establishment of public WiFi. Usually these are the smallest municipalities in Slovakia in various locations, which results in a lower standard of living of the population and worse services that the municipality can provide.
If we take the Eurofund map, Eastern Slovakia dominates the number of projects implemented in the last Eurofund period. The Prešov Region comes first with 5,644 projects and Košice on the second with 4,459 projects. The problem, however, is the uniformity of their distribution. The least projects were implemented in the districts of Stropkov and Medzilaborce, most in the Prešov district.
What factors interfere with the ability of municipalities and towns to draw European funds?
Especially for smaller municipalities, the problem of administrative demands of applications, a high participation they cannot afford, as they are financed according to the population, is a problem. For small budgets worth hundreds of thousands of euros, there is a problem to allocate funding for project documentation, and if the application fails, the money will not return. The next question is to pay the project manager, usually an externalist.
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District cities can get millions of millions of millions from Eurofunds, while only a few kilometers away municipalities can only be a few thousand. In your report, you write that, for example, municipalities up to 250 inhabitants practically failed to participate in a European cake, so the acquisition of Eurofunds is very difficult for them. Why is that so?
According to analysis of the Institute of Financial Policy of the municipality up to 250 inhabitants, more than half of all expenditures on the performance of the administration, ie at the expense of the development of the municipality and quality provision of services, spend more than half. The first aid may be to set up a specific Eurofund challenge to small municipalities with a simple administration. However, it must be designed for their acute needs. If you need a sewer, you call you to the purchase of the purchase Folding benches and the creation of commemorative rooms will not please.
What would help them in drawing?
Combining municipalities will also help. In the past programming period, we have seen several examples when the larger municipality helped a joint project of a smaller village that could not realize it itself. Today it is also possible to connect the form of common municipal authorities, most often in construction departments, education, nature conservation, social affairs. This is how they have it in Budimír.
And the last option is a complete merger of municipalities that would allow reduction of local ties, reducing the risk of corruption, family life or public abuse without sufficient control, but could also help the financial savings.
In your analysis you write about the Norwegian city of Indre Østfold, which is the result of a combination of five municipalities. The Town Hall is also a social center, including a library and a social hall. How does it work?
Today’s Indre Østfold, a city near the Norwegian border with Sweden with 47,000 inhabitants, is the result of a combination of five municipalities, which is the largest connection in Norway. Before the merger, these municipalities were not equal, some had a weaker economy, elsewhere the revenue was lifted by a wind power plant, resulting in different quality of municipal services. According to the municipality, these differences were equalized by merger, which was one of the main goals of the Norwegian reform.
Savings on the costs of the municipality are also the aim of merging. In Indre Østfold as one of the main goals, they also accentuated sustainability. They mentioned that the inhabitants demanded the same quality of health services during the Covid period, which was also an incentive for joining. Another question was education – in one of the original municipalities, they have a school with 50 pupils and in another with 500 pupils, so in this case they also deal with the question of how to ensure the same quality of services.
The community in the Norwegian city is the result of a combination of five municipalities. (Source: Martina Hilbertová)Do you see such a space with us?
Analysis of the Institute of Financial Policy speaks of two possibilities, merging to the level of registry offices, which are 970 in Slovakia to 2,927 municipalities, would allow EUR 181 million per year to release. The second option is to merge to the level of microregions, which would release 316 million a year.
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The most important reports from the east of Slovakia read at Korzar.sme.sk. All reports from Prešov and Scarch region can be found at Prešov Corsair
