Answer given by Mr Hahn on behalf of the European Commission

28.11.2019

The Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) benefitted from a grant up to EUR 126,951.81 under the 5th phase of the EU-Turkey Civil Society Dialogue programme funded from the 2015 Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA) envelope, which is implemented in indirect management by the Turkish authorities. The Leopold Weiss Institute was co-applicant for this grant.

The EU rules governing grant awards, in particular transparency and equal treatment, were respected in the selection process. Under such contracts, the contents of materials produced are the sole responsibility of the recipient of the funds — and a disclaimer features on the third page of the report produced by SETA. The project is funded under the budget line 22.020301.

Turkey’s Ministry of EU Affairs, EU Department, was the leading institution and Turkey’s Central Finance and Contract Unit was the contracting authority. Consequently, the Turkish authorities, not the Commission, set the funding criteria.

Starting from the 2017 programme, IPA support to civil society has been fully recentralised, and all EU funds allocated to this sector after 2016 are managed in full by the Commission services and not by the Turkish authorities. The grant to SETA is part of the IPA 2015 programming year, i.e. before the re-centralisation of programmes operated by the Commission.