Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-13-Speech-4-125"
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, I would first like to make the fundamental observation that the Commission, too, very much welcomes and supports your initiative in taking up this very difficult issue. We can also accept most of the points made and endorse those contained in the motion for a resolution.
I would like, though, to set out under three separate headings my response to the questions that have been raised in the various speeches, for all of which I am grateful, as they have led to a very rounded debate. Firstly, I believe that, despite our structural and support policies, we must not ignore the fact we are in a market economy system and that the primary task must be to ensure that the market economy system works. That has nothing to do with Manchester liberalism, but rather with adherence to, for example, our European rules on competition, for failure to ensure that competition works would utterly contradict the whole of our support policy and the entire cohesion and structural policy. I believe that to be something that we must not permit. The consequence is that evidence indicating the importance of our having a working market economy is very important and must not be allowed to be disregarded.
The second is to ask what we can do to ensure that aid is not misused, but applied to the purpose for which it was granted.
It was in relation to this that I set out in my first speech the elements of the current rules, and it goes without saying that, in this area, the Commission has to ensure that, where one rule or another is not complied with – where, for example, a firm, contrary to what was laid down in its agreement with the Member State in question or with the Community, moves the business to another location before the permitted date – then, reimbursement is required.
To the assertion made by some of you that there is, over and above that, the need for sanctions, I can only say that, at present, repayment is the sanction. No additional sanctions at present exist. That is an issue that perhaps ought to be discussed in the Convention, for if additional sanctions, for example of a financial nature, were sought, provision would have to be made for them in the Treaty. Such a possibility does not at present exist in the Treaty.
The third thing I would like to address is the issue of whether new firms are given preferential treatment. For a start, it does not make much sense in this context to insist that a firm be newly established. What is much more interesting is to focus consideration on how many new jobs will result from a project being supported. That is the decisive factor. What this is about is increasing the level of employment in these regions.
You have made a number of suggestions with the future in mind, and to these I want to say one thing. One of the items in your motion for a resolution is a demand that the Commission should draw up a list of those firms that have been found guilty by a court of law. We can see difficulties in this as regards data protection. That is a fact, and we have to live with it.
Apart from that, this debate comes just at the right time, as we will today have the opportunity to discuss future structural policy in the context of the new cohesion report. It is therefore appropriate the proposals should be made as to how the rules on the grant of structural funding might be improved."@en1
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