Background information

 

IPA Components

Component	Responsibility	Scope
IPA I - Institution Building & Transition Assistance (TAIB)	DG ELARG	Institution building measures and associated investment, as well as transition and stabilisation measures still necessary in the Western Balkans.  It is delivered through annual national and multi-beneficiary programmes.
IPA II - Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC)	DG ELARG & DG REGIO	Supports cross-border cooperation at borders between candidate/potential candidate countries and between them and EU member states.  It may also fund participation of IPA beneficiary countries in Trans-national programmes and Sea Basins programmes under the ENPI as appropriate
IPA III – Regional Development	DG REGIO	Finances investments and related technical assistance to support operations under the following three themes: a)    Transport infrastructure, focusing on connection with TEN-T networks; b)    Environment projects related to waste management, water supply, urban waste water and air quality; energy efficiency, renewable energy; rehabilitation of contaminated sites and land; c)    Operations to enhance regional competitiveness, creation of sustainable employment, by providing business and technology services, access to ICT, promotion of technology development, research and innovation, business clusters, provision of local infrastructure that facilitates business, etc, education and training infrastructure, where their lack hamper regional development, and in coordination with IPA IV. Measures funded under IPA III are similar to the measures funded under the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund in Member States.
IPA IV – Human Resources Development (HRD)	DG EMPL	Designed to strengthen economic & social cohesion, as well as contributing to the priorities of the European Employment Strategy, in the fields of employment, education and social inclusion, through measures similar to the ESF in Member States.
IPA V – Rural Development (IPARD)	DG AGRI	Serves to emulate post-accession Rural Development programmes by financing rural development-type measures, similar in nature to these programmes, though smaller in scale.

 

From annual project preparation to multi annual strategic programming

The IPA assistance under Component III and Component IV mirrors the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund (ESF) as well as the Cohesion Fund and provides an learning by doing experience to prepare for Structural Funds. The similarities between IPA and the Structural Funds are visible in the strategic planning and the multi annual programming phase.

This also involves increasingly taking responsibility for the management of EU funds within the Serbian administration by adopting and becoming accredited managers for EU funds under the Decentralised Implementation System (DIS). DIS establishment is planned in the DIS Roadmap which includes the institutional requirements for managing IPA funds.

Component III and IV are DIS with ex-ante controls by the Commission. While for IPA I and II, DIS is introduced after the signature of the Financing Agreements, for IPA III and IV DIS is a pre-requisite for the signature of the Financing Agreements.

The project will thus relate to the Stage 0 of the DIS roadmap which concerns the establishment of the general framework under which the management and control systems will work under IPA in Serbia in compliance with the objectives, principles and binding rules concerned.

The major difference between Component I and II on the one hand and Component III and IV on the other hand is the shift from annual planning to overall the strategic planning in the SCF and the multi-annual programming in the OPs. The drafting of the SCF will require central coordination at the policy level to integrate sector strategies into a SCF. The organisation of IPA III and IV via multi-annual programmes will be a time consuming exercise which has to be prepared in consultation with relevant partners and in dialogue with the Commission.

 

Current status of IPA in Serbia

Currently, Serbia is able to finance actions, similar to those eligible under IPA III and IV, from its IPA Component I funding. The main difference between IPA I on the one hand, and IPA III and IV on the other, is that the latter is explicitly intended to help Candidate Countries to prepare for the programming, management and implementation of the Structural Funds (ERDF and ESF) and the Cohesion Fund. This is characterised by multi-annual programming, based on a hierarchy of objectives from strategic priorities down to individual measures, linked to selection criteria and performance targets, as the basis for preparing and choosing projects for funding. IPA III and IV also introduce new techniques into programme implementation, including flexibility in programme expenditure (under the N+3 rule), and managing, monitoring and evaluating operational programmes to optimise the use of resources to achieve strategic objectives, including switching resources across operations, measures and priority axes, as appropriate, all within a context of decentralised management by the Serbian authorities.

In order to shape the production of the overarching Strategic Coherence Framework (SCF), as the reference document for three-year Operational Programmes (OPs) under IPA III and IV, the European Commission is required to draft and review annually a Multi-annual Indicative Planning Document (MIPD) which elaborates the Commission’s needs assessment and development objectives for candidate and prospective candidate countries. As noted in the ToR, the timescale for the SCF and OPs in Serbia will be the last three years of the current financial perspective, namely 2011-2013. Accompanying the MIPD, the Commission also prepares a Multi-annual Indicative Financial Framework (MIFF), which provides information on the EC’s intentions in terms of the financial envelope by horizontal programmes, country, component and administrative expenditure, and is revised annually, on a rolling three year basis.

 

IPA structures in Serbia