The European Commission could do a much better job at overseeing TEN-T projects in the Western Balkan region. That is the main finding of an investigation by the European Court of Auditors, which identified a variety of glaring issues with project implementation and monitoring in the region. Inadequate implementation is leading to delays.
The EU auditors sampled 12 transport projects supported through the Western Balkans Investment Fund (WBIF) with a total of 527 million euros since 2015. Six of these projects involve the construction or rehabilitation of rail infrastructure, which should help connect the Western Balkan region to the European core TEN-T network by 2030. In their assessment, the auditors remain concise on that deadline: it is unlikely to be met.
There are some clear areas for improvement in terms of the Commission’s activities, according to the auditors. Whereas the projects match the EU’s connectivity priorities, the Union often chooses to fund immature projects. The preparatory work of these projects was not yet completed, such as a cost-benefit analysis and detailed design work. As a result, the average delay to start implementation was 17 months.
This is not helped by shortcomings in supervision and monitoring. The Commission relies on the supervision of financial institutions, but those did a flawed job. Despite its ultimate responsibility for EU budget implementation, the Commission did not ask the institutions to provide evidence of their supervision and mitigation of implementation risks. It was not able to identify shortcomings in the supervision of public procurement procedures either.
In terms of monitoring, the Commission especially relies on annual implementation reports from financial institutions. However, the provided information was often not up-to-date. Consequently, the Commission was unable to address reasons for delays.
Grant approval without guaranteed connection
A particularly concerning instance of flawed project implementation relates to a railway in North Macedonia. Here, the core rail corridor was not connected to one of its neighbours, and no agreement had been reached with neighbouring countries to ensure that the entire corridor was operable at the time the grant was approved, the EU auditors say.
