The European Court of Auditors has recently released a special report on the use of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds for transport infrastructure in seaports. The Court found out that only 11 of the 27 audited transport infrastructure projects were effective.

The report covers the pre-recession period from 2000-2006 and looks at 27 projects in France, Spain, Italy and Greece. These projects represent 85% of the total Structural and Cohesion budget that was spent on port infrastructure during this period.

In addition, a third of the projects audited had non-transport-related objectives.

As well as ineffective projects, the Court found that some projects were not in use and several significant projects, with a value of 71% of the total amount audited, had not been completed at the time of the audit. 11 projects had been completed on time, but the 12 other completed projects experienced an average construction delay of 26 months.

Furthermore, five of the projects - representing almost half of the funding amounts audited - will need considerable further investment before they can be put into effective use.

The Court also concluded that none of the audited regions and countries had a long-term port development plan in place and no needs assessment had been carried out.

Matteo Bianchi