Additionality means that to achieve a genuine economic impact, the appropriations of the Structural Funds may not replace public expenditure by the Member States.
Community regulations (Article 11 of
Regulation (EC) 1260/99 for the 2000-2006 programming period and Article 9 of Regulation (EEC) 2082/93(pdf, 190 kb) for the 1994-1999 programming period) establish that the resources of the Structural Funds used to achieve the objectives of Community policy shall be additional to the national public expenditure on such objectives.
For Objectives 2 and 3 taken together, the Commission and the Member State concerned shall determine the level of expenditure on the active labour-market policy and, where justified, other actions designed to make it possible to achieve the goals of those two objectives, which the Member State is to maintain at national level during the programming period.
For Objective 1 regions, each Member State shall maintain total public or equivalent structural expenditure (development-related expenditure) at least equal to the amount of average annual expenditure in real terms achieved in the previous programming period.
The level shall be determined in the light of the general macroeconomic circumstances in which the funding takes place, although account should be taken of certain specific economic situations, namely privatisations, an exceptional level of public structural effort or equivalent effort on the part of the Member State during the previous programming period and national economic trends.
Additionality is verified at three different points in the programming period: ex ante, mid-term and ex post.
For the 1994-1999 programming period, a comprehensive, transparent methodology was developed to verify additionality. It was based on the RPA database, constructed specifically for this purpose and designed to measure financial flows at the regional level.
The ex-post verification for 1994-1999 was carried out in December 2002 and reported in the revised version following the mid-term evaluation of the CSF (Sect. 1.3.4 Ex-post verification of additionality for 1994-1999).
The 2000-2006 programming process stressed the principle of additionality, which has taken on a key role in economic policy strategy, as it is a precondition for the pursuit of the programming objectives agreed at the European level for economic and social cohesion, financial stability and the additionality of national public resources.
As part of this process, it was very important to be able to draw on a much improved information system that resulted in:
an enhanced capacity to reconstruct expenditure flows thanks to the improved quality of the available databases. This is attributable in particular to a broad process of evaluating the methodologies adopted, which culminated with the revision of the RPA database for 1996-2000, and to the reduction in the lag with which the data becomes available following the development of the public capital expenditure indicator;
an enhanced capacity to forecast expenditure thanks to an effective system for monitoring Structural Funds and funds specifically appropriated for underdeveloped areas.
The ex-ante additionality objective, which forms the reference framework for the entire 2000-2006 programming period, was set by the European Commission and Italian authorities in the Community Support Framework approved in July 2000 (Sect. 4.4 of the 2000-2006 CSF).
The mid-term verification is carried out no later than three years after approval of the Community Support Framework and as a general rule no later than 31 December 2003. It involved an assessment of achievement of the ex-ante additionality objective. Following the mid-term verification, Italian authorities and the Commission may agree to revise the level of structural expenditure to be attained for the rest of the period if the economic situation has resulted in developments that are significantly different from those expected at the time of the ex-ante verification.
The mid-term verification for 2000-2006 was carried out in July 2003 and reported in the revised version following the mid-term evaluation of the CSF (Sect. 4.4 Mid-term verification).
Following the mid-term verification, it was determined that the conditions under which it is possible to revise the level of expenditure for the rest of the period on the basis of Community guidelines (Article 11 of Regulation (EC) 1260/99) had been satisfied.
Specifically, the mid-term analysis, the findings of which were incorporated in the CSF, prompted a revision of the ex-ante additionality levels.
The revision of expenditure objectives for 2000-2003 was carried out in November 2004 and is reported in the revised version following the mid-term evaluation of the CSF (Sect. 4.4 Revision of expenditure objectives for 2003-2006).
The ex-post verification was carried out in December 2005, in accordance with Art. 11 of Regulation (EC) 1260/99.
On 20 January 2006 the European Commission stated that the information provided fully complies with the requirements of the ex-post verification and confirmed that Italy had respected the principle of additionality for 2000-2004 programming period.
Additionality
