Phare Grant Scheme Review : Thematic evaluation of Phare support allocated in 1999-2002 and implemented until November 2003 ; Phare from Pre-accession to Accession

This report is a review of the Grant Scheme Instrument used under the Phare Programme. It identifies key trends, conclusions and lessons learned to date. It also serves as an ex-ante evaluation to feed into the programming and design of Grant Schemes in remaining and future Candidate Countries. This report provides a horizontal perspective on the organisational aspects of the Grant Scheme Instrument. This perspective is complemented by other thematic reviews on ESC, CBC and Minorities that provide further information on Grant Schemes’ results and impact in these respective sectors. It focuses on the Grant Scheme instrument and the pure delivery mechanism from Commission Services to end beneficiary of EU co-finance and examines bottlenecks in Grant Scheme delivery. ... The objective of the report is to review the Grant Scheme (GS) Instrument under Phare. The aims are twofold to assess GS performance under Phare and also to assess the impact and lessons learned from the changing trajectory of acceding country administration readiness to absorb significantly higher multiples of post-accession structural and cohesion financing.