dormant commitment

During the seminars, in order to free up idle resources, a substantial effort went into identifying dormant commitments lying under previous EDFs.

They have demonstrated a considerable success in reducing dormant commitments and sleeping commitments so that the reste à liquider has fallen quite substantially.

In a number of cases, measures have already been taken on recovery of misspent money, on reducing the level of advances and on eliminating dormant commitments.

What is the timetable for completing this exercise and, once all dormant commitments have been identified, what is the process for recommitting them to the Fast Track Initiative?

For instance, we pressed ahead with the closure, wherever possible, of old and dormant commitments, and we proposed also the introduction of a so-called 'sunset clause' to limit the time during which funds allocated to an action can be used for contracts.

Finally, I am surprised at the sum of EUR 10.3 billion of 'outstanding commitments' which is 25% of the total funds committed, and it is imperative that the Commission should reduce these funds still more drastically, especially old and dormant commitments.

We submitted a report on this as part of the 2001 budgetary procedure and made it clear that, of course, these abnormal commitments, which have long been known as dormant commitments, must be reduced as soon as possible. Indeed, the field of external aid is already showing the first positive signs in this respect.