On July 14th, the European Commission released an update on the adoption of Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes. EU member states with PAs approved by the EC on June 20th include Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus, and Slovakia.
Up until now, the EC has approved 9 out of 28 PAs. The ones that have already been adopted are presented in the PA statuses blog. The following adoptions are expected in late July or early August this year.
The European Union is planning the adoption of agreements through the following scheduled steps:
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PAs should be adopted by the end of August 2014 at the latest.
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OPs should be adopted by the end of January 2015 at the latest.
Why is it important for these legal documents to be monitored?
Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes are in fact two fundamental types of documents that are needed for using the EU structural funds and other financial instruments of the EU budget .
Setting the legal base of the relationship between a member state and EU government is the precondition for how this relationship should work in the current seven year 2014-2020, what the relationship should look like and how each element should be financed.
When the legal framework between a member state and the EU is set, then it is only the question of running the policy as it was stated through those documents.
The role of the member state is to operate and to monitor according to PA and OP on the national level, and the role of the EU government is to do the same on the EU level.