PPP and EU funds, what complementarities?

The paper summarises the issues discussed and put forward at the conference organised on this subject by the Enlargement Economic Department and the MEDEF International. The underlying thoughts tally with a triple aim. First, the Central and Eastern European countries are going to receive European funds, for which it will be necessary to maximise their effectiveness, considering the very important investment needs in the region. Second, the European Commission is, with the publication of its Green Paper on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), in a period of reflection on how to stimulate these kinds of contracts. Third, the experience seems to show that PPP make it possible, when they are adapted to the structure and finality of an infrastructure project, to achieve mutual benefits for the public and the private sectors. Experience from the cohesion countries over the 1993-1999 period indicates that the new member states will absorb only part of the available funds. Furthermore, opinions converge to admit that, despite training schemes implemented in the pre-accession period, the Central and Eastern European countries' administrations might have difficulties to set up, in an efficient way, sufficiently viable projects. In this context, and when they are adapted to the structure and the finality of a project, Public-Private Partnerships may generate financial leverage to increase the potential number of economically viable projects, and the use of public funds allowing to increase the net present value of a project or to accelerate investment programmes by associating the private sector to project financing. A given amount of public resources (or European funds) could that way be assigned two projects for example instead of only one.