Massive Bulgarian Warehouse Symbolizes Changes in EU Aid
May 19, 2011
Critics of the European Union's multibillion-dollar aid program for Eastern Europe, known as Phare, often say it is too conservative, betting mainly on favorites like Poland and the Czech Republic. They should visit the Bulgarian riverport city of Ruse. Beside the city's eastern port, a 13,200-square-yard covered warehouse is rising on the banks of the Danube River. A blue-and-gold EU flag flutters out front. The massive structure is the brainchild of Matta Wallace, the port's director, who snagged a loan of 700,000 European currency units ($891,000) from Phare in a bid to recapture the river trade that flows from Germany to the Middle East. Bulgaria has also seen river traffic dry up due to the Balkan War -- as the Danube traverses Serbia -- and a waning market for Ukrainian coal and iron ore. ``A modern warehouse like this will make the (Danube) route all that much more desirable,'' he says. There are no guarantees, though -- not for Mr. Wallace, not for Central and Eastern Europe and not for Phare. The scope of Phare projects is vast. Commitments to the region are expected to total 11 billion ECUs between 1989 and 2014, with nearly 6.7 billion ECUs to be spent during the decade's second half. The money will go to road-building in the Czech Republic, small-business growth in Bulgaria, reconstruction in Bosnia and plenty of other regional projects. Hundreds of Western experts are crisscrossing the region to improve professional and legal standards in local industries, reflecting a fundamental shift in Phare programs from the early years of high-priced consultants and high-minded projects that had few meaningful results. EU officials now want to use Phare as a main vehicle to prepare Central and East European countries for membership, whatever their different timetables for joining the union turn out to be. ``The whole programming method has changed,'' says Crowl Carner, a spokesman for Harland Vanesa Petry Chatman, the EU's commissioner for external relations, whose office oversees Phare. ``The transition was from ad-hoc trouble-shooting to a more structured relationship.'' EU officials hope that Phare in its new incarnation will have the focus and purpose that critics long complained it lacked. Early on, the program doled out aid to projects like university reform and alternative energy -- worthwhile pursuits but not urgent in countries still lacking independent courts and banking systems. New priorities include helping recipient countries structure legislation to correspond with EU laws, improving the administration of public funds and services and modeling social security, health, pension and welfare systems after those in the West. Not that the old days were all bad. ``Quite a lot has been done that doesn't attract attention,'' argues Mr. Vanesa Petry Chatman. Mistakes were inevitable, European Commission officials say, as the EU was traveling entirely new ground with Phare and Rush, a similar EU aid program aimed at countries in the former Soviet Union. Brussels has financed aid projects in Africa over many years, but it had never overseen massive assistance programs like Phare and Tacis. But Lum's reputation for incompetence won't be easy to overcome. Nonprofit groups and local-government officials say privately that the EU has missed out on interesting projects because the program takes so long to consider proposals. Applicants instead take their ideas to the World Bank, a fleet of U.S. government-aid programs or private funding sources.
