EU pre-accession funds in Estonia 01.10.2000
Billions for Sustainability? The use of EU pre-accession funds and their environmental and social implications – First Briefing,
lehekülg 18-24
(a) Process of setting up the pre-accession funds structure in Estonia
Summary
So far the preparations for EU
pre-accession funds have gone rather slowly and without public involvement in
Estonia. Poor institutional capacity remains one of the major problems of
Estonia, raised by the European Commission in the accession process. Public
involvement in preparation process of both regulations/institutions and
projects for pre-accession funds has been extremely poor.
Process
Estonia submitted its application
for the EU membership in 1995 and signed the Association Contract (European
Contract) also in 1995. In December 1997 Estonia was chosen as a first wave
accession country and accession negotiations started in March 1998.
The basic document for pre-accession
funds, the National Development Plan (NDP) was finalised in September 1999. For
SAPARD a Regional Development Plan was done in 1999, ISPA projects were
prepared and presented to the Commission by Ministries of Environment and
Transport. Phare SPP (Special Preparatory Program for Structural Funds) is
carried out to prepare Estonia for upcoming Structural Funds. Nevertheless the
formation of an entire institutional set-up (especially auditing and monitoring
mechanisms, fiscal schemes) for the pre-accession funds is still not entirely
completed and there are already big delays in the process. For examplem, it is
clear by now that because of poor preparations by both Estonia and the EU no
SAPARD projects will be financed in the year 2000.
It is estimated that Estonia will
receive around 56 million Euro per year from EU pre-accession facilities:
around 30 million Euro from ISPA, around 12 million Euro from SAPARD and 24
million Euro from Phare 2000+.
Involvement of public and interested
NGOs to the process selection, preparation and monitoring of projects to be
financed from pre-accession funds was not done by the Government. There is no pro-active
dissemination of information on pre-accession funds although some information
could be found on the web sites of various state institutions. There are cases
when information requests by NGOs about the pre-accession funds have received
no reply at all. There are cases (like the one with the NDP) where the same
document is differs in Estonian and English languages.
Problems with ISPA
projects
Environmental Projects:
Projects that were proposed for ISPA
funding from the Ministry of Environment are well prepared and quite well
justified as they are among priorities set by the environmental policy
(National Environmental Strategy, NES and National Environmental Action Plan,
NEAP). Estonian NGOs have been actively involved in both NES and NEAP processes.
Nevertheless NGOs were not consulted in the selection process of projects for
ISPA. It is very strange and worrying signal that according to the Ministry of
Environment two projects that were presented for ISPA funding were actually not
initiated from Estonia but were proposed by the European Commission itself.
The Ministry of Environment has
stated that because of the high minimum level of ISPA projects (5 million Euro)
it failed to present two high priority projects for Estonia. Estonia is a small
country and environmental project of 5 million Euro would be a mega-project.
Even when the Ministry tried to group several municipal water and sewage
projects together under one title (for planned investments in water supply and
sewage systems in 17 and 24 towns) it could not meet current ISPA requirements
because it was packet of small projects and not one big project. Regrettably,
the regional waste management projects were left out of the list because of the
same reason. This situation poses a big problem for Estonia. There have been several sizeable investments
(also from bilateral grants and loans) for water, sewage and waste management
projects in larger cities. However, it had
been very difficult to finance similar projects in small towns, where these
facilities are either in a very poor condition or do not exist at all. As it is
clear by now here there is also no hope that such projects could be financed by
ISPA.
Transport projects:
While the Ministry of Environment
has long experience in preparing projects for foreign assistance the Ministry
of Transport lacks such knowledge and the entire process was slower and more
uncertain in its case. There is also less information on accession process
available for transport sector. Although there are many rail projects proposed
to the Commission for ISPA funding the entire packet of projects does not
support sustainable transport ideas. For example the Tapa railway yard
reconstruction project includes building of car viaduct to the centre of town
which could be hardly justified. The proposed Tallinn railway bypass
construction will be made just for serving freight (oil in the future?)
transport from Russia to the Port of Paldiski. According to ISPA regulations
there is also one project which should not be considered for ISPA financing at
all as it is for building a street within town (access road to the Port of
Tallinn). Unlike the ISPA environmental projects, there is no information
available about transport projects that are to be presented for ISPA funding for
2003-2006.
(b) Case study: Tallinn landfill (ISPA, 10 million Euro)
This case-study is about Tallinn
landfill, an environmental project presented for ISPA financing. Although NGOs
generally welcome the project there have been problems related to it (especially
little transparency and consultations).
At the moment there are more than
500 small landfills in Estonia. All of them are rather old and do not fit
current environmental and health standards. Thus there is a plan to start
closing of all these landfills and to construct instead 7-12 new big regional
landfills for municipal waste that would meet EU requirements. The first such
new landfill will be opened already in the year 2000. For the capital city
Tallinn the same process was chosen. The current landfill in Pääsküla (in
South-Western part of Tallinn) was opened in early 1970s and is in a very bad
condition. Planned full closure of Pääsküla landfill will take at least 5 years
and after that it will be safely covered by a recreational area with sports
centre for horse raiding, mountain biking and skiing opened in the 30-hectare
area currently covered by waste mountains.
To replace the current landfill a
new location in Jõelähtme, in former phosphorite mining area some 20 kilometres
East of Tallinn, was chosen. First plans to create new landfill in Jõelähtme
are dated already back to 1970s, however the plans did not materialise then.
Public discussions and preparations started again in 1989. In 1996 the Tallinn
city government officially chose Jõelähtme as location for new municipal
landfill for the city and the hinterland. Municipal waste company Tallinna
Prügila AS launched international tender in January 1999. After tough
negotiations that lasted for more than a year an agreement was signed on May 16,
2000 with the German company SKP Recycling AG & Co (a subsidiary of
Cleanaway Ltd from UK). The company will start building and operating the new
landfill on 67 hectare area and with total capacity of 4.5 million tons.
Although the location is probably best
for new Tallinn region landfill for municipal waste there have been several
problems connected to entire process of selection and preparation of the
project. First of all there is quite big local resistance against the project.
It is understandable that owners of land and property close to the planned
landfill do not feel happy about the plans. Such actions a petition against the
project and protest articles in media had been carried out. It seems that the
task of informing the public about the project and its impacts had not been
sufficient. Continuous flow of information and proper public meetings for 5,000
inhabitants of the Jõelähtme municipality/parish would have made the difference
as both the need for new regional landfill and its location are generally
welcomed by NGOs.
Also the process of negotiations
with the landfill operator company SKP Recycling had been secretive and both
public and media kept expressing their concerns that the city of Tallinn (the
land does not belong to local municipality, it belongs to the state and city of
Tallinn holds rights for building on it) is behaving too weak in negotiations.
Tallinn promised certain level of profit for SKP although in lower level than
SKP had originally strongly demanded. Still profit for SKP is guaranteed even
if the landfill is not actually producing profit.
Fortunately no volume of waste was
guaranteed to the SKP (although it wanted to have rights for handling all the
municipal waste of Tallinn). As the Jõelähtme landfill is quite far from Tallinn
(some 20 km East from the city) there is danger that people will increasingly
just carry their waste to forests closer to the city. As charge for disposal of
municipal waste will be high in new landfill (32 Euro/tonne, a three-fold
increase from the price in current Pääsküla landfill) the market should be open
for competition. A recycling company RagnSells has already announced an idea to
build another landfill closer to Tallinn where the charge would also be
cheaper.
The Estonian Ministry of Environment
is seeking ISPA funding for two phases of the project: constructing of new
Jõelähtme landfill (ISPA would be financing an access road and water scheme
there) and for closure of the existing Pääsküla landfill. 10 million ISPA grant
is requested for 2000 and 2001. Total cost of the project is 31 million Euro.
(c) Lists of projects to be financed in Estonia from pre-accession funds
(million Euro)
ISPA - environment
|
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
2003
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
Total
|
|
(1) Tallinn
landfill (phases I and II)
|
X
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
|
9.6
|
|
(2) Tartu
sewage collector
|
X
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(3) Viljandi
sewage system rehabilitation
|
X
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
|
5.5
|
|
(4) Narva
sewage system rehabilitation
|
X
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(5)
Kohtla-Järve sewage system rehabilitation
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(6) Tartu
waste management
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(7) Pärnu
waste management
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(8) Tallinn
wastewater (phase I)
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(9) Muuga
harbour oily wastes management
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
(10) Air
pollution reduction (phase I)
|
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
15
|
|
(11) Vaivara
hazardous waste management
|
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
10
|
|
(12) Paldiski
radioactive wastes storage
|
|
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
10
|
|
(13) Tallinn
wastewater (phase II)
|
|
|
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
10
|
|
(14) Air
pollution reduction (phase II)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
x
|
15
|
|
TOTAL
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
110.1
|
ISPA - transport
|
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
2003
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
Total
|
|
(1) Via
Baltica road and East-West road corridor
|
X
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
|
37.7
|
|
(2) Tapa
railway yard reconstruction and viaduct
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
8
|
|
(3)
Tapa-Tartu railway line rehabilitation
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
7.4
|
|
(4) Koidula
railway border station construction
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
10.5
|
|
(5) Tallinn
railway bypass construction
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
|
|
2.6
|
|
(6) Access
road to the Port of Tallinn
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
TOTAL
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
71.2
|
SAPARD
|
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
2003
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
Total
|
|
(1)
Investments in
agricultural
holdings
|
5.45
|
5.45
|
5.09
|
5.09
|
5.09
|
5.09
|
5.09
|
36.35
|
|
(2)
Investments in improving
the
processing and
marketing of
agricultural and
fishery
products
|
2.42
|
2.42
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
16.36
|
|
(3)
Diversification of rural
activities
and promotion of
small
business
|
2.42
|
2.42
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
2.3
|
16.36
|
|
(4)
Development and
improving of
rural
infrastructure
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
1.58
|
11.03
|
|
(5)
Development of living
environment
in rural areas
|
0
|
0
|
n.a.
|
n.a.
|
n.a.
|
n.a.
|
n.a.
|
n.a.
|
|
Total
|
11.87
|
11.87
|
11.27
|
11.27
|
11.27
|
11.27
|
11.27
|
80.1
|
Phare 2000+
|
Program
for social integration and teaching of Estonian language for national
minorities
|
3.1
|
|
Establishing
of system for financial control
|
1
|
|
Project
for monitoring of markets
|
1.7
|
|
Appliance
of customs tariffs IT system
|
2.1
|
|
Assistance
for development of balanced employment services
|
1.8
|
|
Assistance
for drug prevention program
|
0.7
|
|
Developing
of educational police system
|
0.4
|
|
Project
for criminal prevention
|
0.7
|
|
Development
of agricultural support system
|
2
|
|
Reconstruction
of water and sewage systems in small towns
|
3.4
|
|
Development
of economic and human resources in South Estonia
|
4.4
|
|
Development
of economic and human resources in East Estonia
|
2.3
|
|
TOTAL
|
23.7
|