JASPERS was set up to provide Member States joining the EU since 2004 with independent, free-of-charge advice to help them prepare high-quality proposals for large-scale regional investment projects.
NIK in cooperation with the European Court of Auditors and the State Audit Office of Croatia published the report concerning the coordinated audit of the Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions - JASPERS. According to the document, the provided JASPERS assistance was fairly comprehensive. JASPERS positively impacted the quality of project documentation and, what follows, contributed to a quicker approval of projects by the European Commission. However, its impact was more effective, when it was involved already at an early preparation stage of a project.
The Supreme Audit Office of Poland and the State Audit Office of Croatia conducted national audits in ministries and bodies responsible for the implementation of projects that used JASPERS assistance. The audit encompassed the period between the launch of JASPERS initiative in 2006 and the end of 2016.
NIK audited the Ministry of Development, General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, as well as selected marshal’s offices and municipal offices. According to the Office, JASPERS support improved the quality of the Polish applications for the EU financing. As a result the European Commission submitted less comments, therefore at a later stage of the procedure the documents were analysed in a shorter period of time, than those concerning projects which did not use the assistance.
JASPERS is managed by a dedicated department at the European Investment Bank (EIB) and financed mainly by the European Commission through the EU budget. The actual cost of JASPERS, between commencing operations in 2006 and the end of 2016, was about €284 million.
JASPERS is aimed to assist and support the preparation of projects applying for the EU financing, in particular to assure high quality of grant applications submitted to the European Commission, which increases probability of approval.
Between 2006, when JASPERS commenced its operations, and the end of 2016, 1147 tasks within this instrument were completed. About 2/3 of them concerned large projects. Almost 27 % of all tasks (307) were implemented in Poland and about 4 % (46) in Croatia.
