Latvia will not receive a third of EU funding earmarked for 2016

Latvia doesn’t know how to use EU funding

The EU has put a total of 5.6 billion euros at Latvia’s disposal for the years 2014 – 2020.

Now the Latvian parliament has revealed that the plans for distributing the funding are behind schedule, and that the country will not receive a third of the money earmarked for 2016.

That’s outrageous, the business daily Dienas bizness fumes:

Now that two years have passed and the first 4.4 million euros should be fully accessible, the civil servants say they still have no strategy for how the money is to be used. Well when will they have one? In 2020? All they’ve done for the past two years is laze around, and the funding is being distributed even slower than in 2007 – 2013. There’s even the risk that Latvia could lose considerable sums. At the same time our entrepreneurs and academics are waiting in vain for these very funds.