Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-062"
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"en.20010116.5.2-062"2
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". – Mr President, as I am here instead of my colleague Pedro Solbes Mira, I will give his speech in English, also in honour of the rapporteur.
Finally, the report questions the tax structure of venture capital funds and calls on the Commission to encourage each Member State to adopt laws permitting tax-transparent funds to be created in their country and to recognise transparent funds established in a similar way in other Member States. This matter, which is of great interest to the Commission, has recently been dealt with in the Commission communication on the risk capital action plan which was finalised in October 2000. To quote from the report "the tax structure might hinder cross-border investment by creating specific tax obstacles or even discriminating against foreign investors. A comprehensive response to such barriers might be achieved most effectively through coordinated action on EU level. In any event, Member States have to make sure that tax treaties and all other tax law instruments prevent double-taxation of dividends in cross-border investment'.
To conclude, now that the restructuring of the European Investment Fund is complete, the Commission services and the EIF are working together to progressively implement the ECOFIN and Industry Council's decisions, in particular with the multi-annual programme for enterprise.
To be realistic, Parliament should not expect any substantial result before 2003 or 2004, although preliminary indications in particular from guarantee schemes might be available earlier.
Let me add as the Budget Commissioner, that the Commission has welcomed Parliament's decision for the 2001 budget to increase amounts for loans and grants available to SMEs.
This was an important signal to the small and medium-sized enterprises and an important step to achieve the aims of Lisbon to create a knowledge-based modern economy in the European Union.
This report concerns the first annual report on the Growth and Employment Initiative. This initiative aims to provide financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises as a step towards the development of a business climate conducive to investment, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is also in line with the Lisbon European Council conclusions of March 2000 where the objectives of strengthening employment, economic reform and social cohesion as part of a knowledge-based economy were set as a new strategic goal for the Union.
I would like to address the main points raised by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' report prepared by Mr Bushill-Matthews.
Firstly, the report notes that the Commission reporting process is too lengthy, causing delays in the receipt of the report by Parliament. At the same time, Parliament's report states that there is a lack of information particularly concerning feedback information from small and medium-sized enterprises, beneficiaries of the Growth and Employment Initiative.
In my view, these two matters are inter-linked and are a result of the way the financial instruments that form part of the Growth and Employment Initiative are constructed. These are designed so as to commit budgetary resources to financial institutions such as venture capital funds, national guarantee schemes and commercial banks which would act as intermediaries for final SME beneficiaries.
In this respect, the information regarding commitment and draw-downs made to financial institutions in a given year is available during the first quarter of the following year. On the other hand, feedback information from small and medium-sized enterprises concerning a given year is only available for all the instruments in the last quarter of the following year. This implies that an annual report drawn up by the end of April will include year-end statistics for the previous year at the financial intermediary level and at the SME level, detailed statistics for the preceding year. These time-scales indicate why last year's annual report referring to 1999, which was the first full year of the programme, could not include detailed information at SME level.
This leads us to the following point: streamlining the initiative is an objective shared by both Parliament and the Commission. However, a re-shaping of the financial instruments of the initiative cannot be done annually. First of all, market players could be confused and find it difficult to appreciate the reasons for these changes. Furthermore, a detailed evaluation of these instruments based on a bottom-up approach is needed.
Regarding the JEFV programme which has had the weakest take-up out of the three financial instruments of the Growth and Employment Initiative, the multi-annual programme for enterprises foresees a simplification of the scheme to enable SMEs' requests for financial contributions to be dealt with more quickly by the financial intermediaries and the Commission services. The possibility of adopting the eligibility criteria will also be examined in order to respond more effectively to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Concerning the reform of the European Investment Fund, the report is incorrect in stating that the Commission can no longer use the EIF directly as a tool for financing SMEs. As before, current and the future Community schemes entrusted to the European Investment Fund will be managed separately from its own resources under the principle set and controlled by the Commission services."@en1
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