Psg milan, 6th of july 2007

3.4.2Management issues

Hespul, Raphaelle Gauthier
As a preliminary remark, it has been stressed that all partners are invited to contact Hespul (RG) when questions rose about the implementation of the project (as, for instance, reporting issues, eligible costs, performance guarantees, assessment of performance against contract objectives, etc.). Then, the European coordination will get in touch with DG TREN services to get clarification, if necessary, and get back to the partners as soon as possible.

3.4.2.1Financial Issues

Hespul, Raphaelle Gauthier
Hespul gave some clarification about the financial aspect of the Project, since the signature of the Amendment n°1 of the contract. In particular, it explained what should be the next steps before DG TREN to get both, the first pre-funding payment and the validation process on Year 1 Reports. The 1^st pre-funding should occur quite soon for public entities & ECODES. The other private entities should only get their EC contributions after the full validation of Year 1 Reports. Unfortunately, this latter procedure (validation) might take longer. Hespul emphasised that it is doing its best to speed up that procedure, in order to get ASAP the full payment for all.

Apart from this, Hespul highlighted the fact that there is now a new contractual special clause (clause 39) in the contract following its Amendment n°1, that gives some flexibility about the submission of Audit Certificate by contractors if EC contribution is less than 150 000 Euros (possible & temporary exemption to deliver an Audit Certificate).

Observations/Remarks from partners:
- On financial issues:
SMRUZ, Juan Rubio del Val

On financial issues, SMRUZ expressed their concerns about the lack of funding, and the extraordinary delays that have been registered since the official launch of RENAISSANCE. He encouraged the International coordination to speed up DG TREN services, in order to get the EC contributions, for the sake of the proper implementation of the project.

- On WP4 (partnership proposal):

Ayto. Zaragoza, Astrid García Graells

Following the discussions under WP4, the Ayto. Zaragoza made a proposal to Lyon Consortium. Zaragoza Consortium was thinking of building a partnership involving the occupants of the 2 building areas covered by RENAISSANCE.
Hespul, Marc Jedliczka, answered that, taking into account the construction schedule in Lyon, this idea might be premature, just because there are no habitants in Confluence (Lyon) by now, and not before 2009.

Due to the lack of time to discuss this idea in details, it has been decided to incorporate that item in the next PSG in Lyon.