[Financial assistance to central and eastern Europe: The Phare Program]

The G24 assistance effort has been a significant attempt by the industrialised countries to help the transformation of the economies and societies of central and eastern Europe. However the lack of effective coordination between the 24 donors has meant that the impact of the whole effort on the transformation process has only been marginal. The European Union's assistance has consisted of grants, balance-of-payments loans and structural loans from the European Investment Bank, The most visible element has been the Phare Programme, which has committed around ECU 6,5 billion over the last six years. Whereas other donors are running down their assistance programmes to the region because the first stage of the transformation process is well advanced, the Union's assistance is growing as it prepares to admit the associated countries to membership. An assessment of the Phare Programme has not been completed yet by the European Commission. Although many initiatives have been started in the region by Phare, a provisional assessment suggests that the programme could certainly have been run more efficiently. Many of the problems stem from the multi-national nature of the programme and the desire of the Union's financial control authorities to control expenditure closely. More recently political control has been somewhat reinforced, which again will slow Programme implementation