Article 2

Regulation (EC) No 1267/1999 is hereby amended as follows:

1. 1..

   in Article 1, paragraph 1 shall be replaced by the following:

   ‘1.

   The Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession, hereinafter referred to as “ISPA” is hereby established.

   ISPA shall provide assistance to contribute to the preparation for accession to the European Union of Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, hereinafter referred to as the “beneficiary countries”, in the area of economic and social cohesion, concerning environment and transport policies in accordance with the provisions of this Regulation.’;

2. 2..

   the following subparagraph shall be added at the end of Article 3:

   ‘Notwithstanding the above, Community assistance to Croatia shall be granted during the period from 2005 to 2006.’;

3. 3..

   the following subparagraph shall be added at the end of Article 4:

   ‘By way of derogation from the first and second sentence of this Article, the allocation for Croatia for 2005 and 2006 under this instrument shall be determined by the Commission on the basis of an assessment of the administrative absorption capacity and accession-driven investment needs of this beneficiary country.’;

4. 4..

   in Article 9, paragraph 1, lit. (a), the words ‘as from 1 January 2000 and in any event not later than 1 January 2002,’ shall be deleted.