Government plans new evaluation system for EU funding bids

Budapest, March 10 (MTI) – The government will introduce a new evaluation procedure for applications for European Union funds, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual opening session on Thursday.

The old procedure of delegating evaluation to third-party organisations will be replaced by a system under which applications will be evaluated by a team of civil servants, he said.

The prime minister said the new evaluation method will be quicker and more transparent.

Orbán proposed that the state should only be allowed to borrow for funding development projects and that public administration spending should only be financed by the state’s own resources. Orbán said this provision will have to be taken into account when drafting the 2017 budget in order to achieve a balanced budget with a zero deficit.

Government office chief János Lázár also discussed the plans for the new evaluation system at a conference on EU funding on Thursday. He said the Prime Minister’s Office would submit a proposal for changes to the government by April 15.

Lázár said the main rationale behind the changes was to select a new evaluation board whose members will be made public and criteria for evaluation will be objective and transparent. Every bid will have two evaluators, employees of the state bound by their official duties, he said.

Another committee preparing the evaluation decisions will be made up of representatives of the relevant ministry, the ministry in charge of the budget and the Prime Minister’s Office, he said.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters