Plaid Cymru is to demand an urgent statement from Alun Michael on a leaked report criticising Wales's plans to spend European grants.

The leaked European Commission report criticises Wales's bid for more than £1.2bn in Euro funding.

It concludes in its initial findings that the bid is flawed in several aspects of its presentation.

A leaked copy of the preliminary draft has picked out a number of points of criticism.

They include:

• A lack of vision and innovation in some areas
• A weak sense of ownership of the programme by some of the partners
• A barrier caused by difficulties over match-funding.

The document on the Objective One proposals for west Wales and the Valleys concludes that there are strong points made in some of the presentations - but others have insufficient information.

Reports denied

The weaknesses of the submission, it says, are more comprehensive than the strengths.

But Labour's Economic Development Secretary Rhodri Morgan brushed the criticisms aside.

"This is exactly what we would expect, we didn't expect it to fly through.

"We've always said it would take five months of very serious negotiations indeed."

The detailed nature of the draft response will undoubtedly provide ammunition for those who have been arguing that the Welsh Assembly's case is not providing enough clout to make a cast-iron case - and ensure match-funding for the projects.

But the European Commission's representative in Wales, Catherine Eva, has denied that the report suggests Wales's Objective One bid is in jeopardy.

She said the report was a perfectly normal part of the negotiation process and that nothing in it suggested that the funding was in jeopardy or that the programme would not be achieved.

'Serious flaws'

But Plaid Cymru Assembly member Elin Jones said the comments from the Commission beared out the party's fears about the way the whole programme has been handled by Labour.

"We as a party thought that the document had serious flaws throughout the drafting process and that the final document was the best of a bad lot," said the Plaid AM for Ceredigion.

"We are not surprised that the Commission has made these criticisms.

"Added to this we have little information on implementation, applications and additionality.

"The Labour Government must allow west Wales and the Valleys to grab the opportunity Objective One money offers.