The government has spent the E8.9 million allocated under the 2004 Transition Facility

The government has spent the E8.9 million allocated under the 2004 Transition Facility, and the Commission has accepted to provide an additional E2.9 million which have not been spent by other new member states. The DOI revealed the additional funding in a statement released yesterday. The purpose of the Transition Facility is to continue to assist the new member states in their efforts to strengthen their administrative capacity to implement Community legislation and to foster exchange of best practice, said the DOI. The Transition Facility will be utilised for a number of projects among which those related to upgrade the Blood Transfusion Service, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, improving Border Controls and the Asylum system plus assistance to Malta Enterprise, Malta Maritime Authority, Malta Standards Authority and the Tax Compliance Unit among others. These funds will therefore improve Malta’s current administration which will result in better services to citizens and businesses. The 2004 Transition Facility allocation for Malta was originally set at ≠8.9 million. During the programming phase, however, the total value of the projects submitted by Malta substantially exceeded this figure, said the DOI. Normally a selection process would have been carried out to determine which proposals to take forward and which ones to drop in order to remain within the stipulated allocation. This year, however, during the intensive negotiations between the Planning and Priorities Coordination Directorate and Directorate-General Enlargement, the Maltese side made a strong case that all the projects that had been submitted were very important in the context of all the work going on to ensure that the administration would be in a position to deliver on a par with the other member states.