Answer given by Mrs Hübner on behalf of the Commission
4.1.2005
The Greek authorities submitted to the Commission on 5 December 2003 a proposal for ‘Data and IT infrastructure for a modern Cadastre’, to be co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Third Community Support Framework (CSF III). A revised proposal was re-submitted on 31 August 2004. By letters of 15 December 2003 and 29 September 2004, the Commission confirmed that this proposal was a basis for an agreement with the Greek authorities for co-financing from CSF III this project. The estimated budget of this proposal is € 79.670.000 and a Community contribution of 50% (€ 39.835.000) is requested.
The project will be implemented in the context of the Operational Programme (OP) ‘Information Society’ and the necessary credits will be assigned in the framework of the mid-term review of this programme. Furthermore, this proposal being a major project, an application for confirming the co-financing rate should be submitted to the Commission by the managing authority of the above-mentioned programme.
The Greek proposal covers the following actions which are grouped into five priorities and will be operational by the end of the programming period:
- —Modernisation of the Geodetic Network (HEPOS –Hellenic Positioning Service).
- —Digitalisation and conversion of existing registers. This comprises the digitalisation of land redistribution and land consolidation acts which are actually in analogue form and the production and maintenance of a digital database of active property titles based on the existing information retained in the Mortgage Offices of the urban centres.
- —Creation of base data sets. This comprises, on one hand the production of urban very large scale true-ortho imagery for designated urban zones, and on the other hand the update of the information layer under production by the Ministry of Agriculture, creating a base dataset which will allow the identification of agriculture parcels and cadastral land parcels.
- —Collection of evidence for the land registration process. This involves the delineation of forest and coastal zones.
- —Optimization of the information technology system. This involves the modernisation of the Ktimatologio IT infrastructure, Web services for data sets which will be publicly available for any possible use (future contractors, governmental agencies), as well as Web services for new surveys.
The legal validation of active property rights is not included in this project. The Commission does not envisage any further financial contribution to the land registry project.
Under the second Community Support Framework 1994-1999, only some 7% of the minimum target of 8.446 square kilometres was successfully registered by the end of 2003. Consequently, an amount of some € 57,9 million was recovered, in conformity with the Commission Decision of 20 December 2001[1] concerning the reduction of the Community contribution, as regards the land register. Since the implementation of this original project is considered not at all satisfactory, the recovery of a residual amount of some € 42 million will be examined in the framework of the closure of the OP ‘Environment’ in which this project was included under CSF II.
The Commission will decide what action to take over the interest which allowed on the co-finance paid to the project.
- [1] C (2001) 4519
OJ C 125, 29/05/2006