Czech PM confirms EC threatens to suspend money for education

The threat that the Education Ministry will not be able to draw the money was reported by the Euro.cz server earlier today.

The Education Ministry, however, claims that it has not received any official information from the EC about the threat of suspension of the whole programme.

Necas met Education Minister Josef Dobes (Public Affairs, VV) over the threat today.

"It was an informative meeting at which the minister informed me of the state of drawing the operational programmes and outlined ways of coping with them.

"The Education Ministry must now exert maximal effort to solve it. The danger that the Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme will be stopped does exist," Necas said in a statement provided to CTK.

"The Education Ministry does not have any information about a letter suspending the Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme having arrived [in the Czech Republic]," the ministry´s spokesman Radek Melichar told CTK.

He said the EC´s partner in the programme administration is the Education Ministry and that it should be the first recipient of official information.

"If the prime minister has a letter of this kind, it is not usual," he said.

Czech MEP Jan Brezina said today the halting of European subsidies to Czech education is "in the offing."

"The European Commission starts to consider the situation at the Education Ministry desperate and it sees no chance of a fundamental improvement with regard for the degree of disintegration of (the ministry´s) system of drawing European subsidies," Brezina wrote to CTK.

Bohuslav Sobotka, chairman of the opposition Social Democrats (CSSD), said Necas and Dobes should stop lying about the seriousness of the situation and that the Chamber of Deputies should also receive information about the real situation.

The CSSD has already applied for the convocation of an extraordinary session on the issue.

The government TOP 09 has also criticised Dobes. Chairman of its deputy group Petr Gazdik has said the EC cannot react otherwise to the steps Dobes has taken at the ministry since he arrived there in 2010.

The ministry said formerly an EC audit uncovered mistakes in the control of procurements within the above programme.

The EC has also suspended the payment of subsidies within the programme totalling 1.2 billion crowns.

"The EC criticises us for an insufficient drawing of money, the choice of projects, shortcomings in tenders and insufficient control of auditors. The frequent changes in the posts of clerks assigned to administer the programme is also a problem," Czech ambassador to the EU Milena Vicenova has told weekly Euro.

Server Euro.cz said the shortcomings in drawing EU money originated before Necas´s government assumed power in summer 2010.

Dobes formerly said the problem is only technical and that it will be solved within three months.

He said he will resign if the ministry does not draw the allotted money.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz