Mautone Orsola
The Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment
in Community Structural Funds in Italy
Mautone Orsola
European Environment Agency – Italian Ministry of Environment
Abstract
This work aims to analyse how the application of the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) in the Community Structural Funds helps the implementation of the horizontal principle of environmental sustainability in Italy.
Reg. 1260/1999 on Structural Funds for the cycle 2000-2006 requires a CBA for the so-called major projects – i.e. exceeding €50million. What stands out is that to appraise these projects, environmental components are scarcely considered, even if they are supposed to be a typical feature of a CBA. Nevertheless, the requirement for a CBA was relevant for the allocation of the 4% Community performance reserve in the Objective 2 regions.
The role of the European Investment Bank will be also checked: in the framework of the Community cohesion policy, the Bank has built an appraisal procedure that is reserved to co-financed interventions, which can be substantially considered equivalent to a CBA.
Finally, the impact of the provisions for the next programming cycle 2007-13 will be seen: the current proposal still provide for a CBA, but adds a financial distinction in terms of issues covered by the project, i.e. major projects are those whose total cost exceeds €25 million in the case of the environment and €50 million as for other fields.
This research activity was presented in occasion of the OECD Workshop on recent developments in environmental CBA, held in Rome, Italy, on 14-15 October 2004.
Click here to download the full paper.
(C) 2014 - All rights reserved