EU withholds subsidies for Czech education sector

Prague, July 26 (CTK) - The Czech Education Ministry has failed to correct mistakes in drawing EU subsidies within the half-year deadline, therefore the EC, which suspended the Czech subsidy drawing earlier this year, will not resume the process for the time being, Michal Zaoralek told CTK yesterday.

Zaoralek, Czech deputy education minister for European affairs, said the corrective process was protracted by EU officials, who are to blame for Prague's failure to meet the deadline.

The ministry expects the EC to carry out the final audit soon. Afterwards it is ready to take further corrective steps, Zaoralek said.

In January, the EC suspended the Czech Education Ministry's drawing of a EU subsidy worth 1.2 billion crowns over mistakes it unveiled in the Education for Competitiveness programme.

The ministry expects the subsidy drawing to resume later this year, Zaoralek said.

The EU unveiled mistakes in the Czech programme's operation in late 2011 and set a half-year deadline for the ministry to correct them. The ministry submitted draft corrective measures to Brussels in February, Zaoralek said.

However, the corrective process has continued until now, while the EC resorted to suspending the subsidy drawing after the six-month deadline expired.

EC spokesman Jonathan Todd told Czech Radio yesterday that the EC is not satisfied with the response it received from the Czech authorities. They have not provided a sufficient guarantee for EU money to be spent appropriately, he said.

In the cases in which the audit unveiled incorrect spending, Czech authorities were reluctant to return the money to the EC, Todd said.

Zaoralek said the Education Ministry has taken some of the heralded corrective steps, and others will be taken based on the final audit results.

Earlier this week, the EC resumed the Czech drawing of subsidies within some of the several previously suspended programmes.

However, seven programmes, including Education for Competitiveness, remain suspended over continuing discrepancies.

The Czech Republic was originally entitled to draw an equivalent of 46 billion crowns worth of subsidies for educational projects within the Education for Competitiveness programme by 2013. The government, however, later decided to transfer a billion crowns from it to the Human Resources and Employment operational programme supervised by the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry, in apprehension that the money might fail to be fully drawn within the former programme.

($1=21.061 crowns)