The European Commission has signed Malta’s operational programmes for 2007-13 so Malta will be embarking with the programmes’ implementation and focusing resources on the project selection process, finance parliamentary secretary Tonio Fenech said yesterday.

He was addressing the EU new member states’ conference on cohesion policy, held at St Julian’s.

Whatever the scale of resources and state of play of the programming process, common fundamental strategic and operational issues were facing them all in the design and implementation of the programmes. It was therefore an opportune moment to take stock of progress to date and to look forward at how future challenges would be addressed.

“In this regard, Malta has chosen to focus on the implementation systems as the primary theme for this meeting,” he said. “We are very much aware that implementation systems can make or break the success of structural fund implementation. Getting it right the first time is critical because second chances often come at a high cost.”

This year they were able to take stock of what had worked well and needed to be strengthened and what has worked less well and perhaps needed to be reviewed. Their systems were all different yet they all had to be compliant with the EU regulations.

There was no doubt that the challenges facing them in the next months and in the years ahead were big. Mr Fenech said that over the past three years, they had had to simultaneously start the implementation of the first programmes, meet their first commitments in December 2006, negotiate a new regulatory package, embark on the programming of the new cycle and conclude negotiations with the Commission on the NSRF and operational programmes. “Major achievements, I would say, and based on our results so far, future prospects are looking good.”