In spite of the potentially positive features of combining EU Funds and PPPs and of the instruments already available, there are not many successful examples of projects of this kind. Some of the reasons for this are to be found at the level of EU fund recipients: There are not many PPP projects in general in the EU-12 countries, which are the major recipients of the Structural Funds, mainly because these countries have often limited public sector capacity to deliver complex project structures, both at central government level and even more so at regional and municipal level. They also have organisational bottlenecks. In many cases, the officials involved in administering EU Funds are not the same as the ones involved in the planning and procurement of PPPs. In these circumstances, the 'public-public' partnership, which is a necessary precondition for establishing PPPs, does not always work. Lastly, national legislation is sometimes not adapted to allowing certain combinations of EU Funds and PPPs or certain structures of blending.
The various instruments for combining EU Funds and PPP also have significant differences in their implementation requirements. Some are inherently more amenable to PPPs, and this may explain why these instruments have been applied more than others. For example, a financial engineering instrument like LGTT was set up particularly to mitigate project risks in transport PPPs and was thus designed for PPPs. Similarly, JESSICA rules explicitly target PPP as one of its uses. Evaluation studies are offered by the Commission in cooperation with EIB, which help with targeting and use of the instrument. Further, TEN-T funding as a means of project incentivisation also allows for grant disbursement to private partners and both its rules and its application process are favourable for PPPs.
The application of Structural Funds grants for PPPs, on the other hand, which is also by far the largest amount of potential funding available, requires more attention. Here the complexity varies according to the nature of the funding, the ownership of the assets, the time necessary to implement the investment, etc. It is important to understand and highlight the main areas of difficulties encountered during this budgetary period in order to initiate change and to facilitate the combination of EU Structural Funds and PPPs for the next Financial Perspective.
The main organisational complications inherent in the grant application process for Structural Funds grants include the following: