Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-15-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20070215.3.4-008"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President of the European Investment Bank, the report we are debating today falls within the framework of dialogue between two European institutions.
Our report also emphasises – of course – energy, the energy components, improving the security of supply and the freedom of the market. The EIB can contribute here as well. Also with regard to the funding of the trans-European networks, which are absolutely crucial — as I said earlier — to the structured development of the European economy.
Furthermore, with regard to foreign policy, we appeal to the EIB since we believe that the volume of loans granted to Latin America is insufficient, compared to external activities in other regions of the world.
With regard to the methods for intervention, we welcome the intensification of cooperation with the Commission on programmes that are already underway. We are pleased with the volume of resources allotted to small and medium-sized businesses, and we would insist that this is a fundamental aspect that we must continue to improve in the future.
We must also stress the improvement in access to information and the transparency of operation, which the Bank is clearly improving. The report contains a positive assessment in this regard and also encourages the bank to continue with that transparency, genuinely subjecting its accounts to the Basel II criteria and, through better communication of its work, to provide its users with better information, beginning with the European Union’s financial intermediaries.
This dialogue is producing positive results, as demonstrated by the presence of the European Parliament, in a spirit of cooperation and appreciation of the important work of the European Investment Bank.
We have been working on this report for months. We began on 20 June of last year and that work also involved our visit to the headquarters of the EIB in September.
Also fruitful has been the work we have carried out with the various political groups, with all of those that have tabled amendments. We reached an agreement on the inclusion of those amendments with the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, with the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, with the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, with the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and with the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left. I would like publicly to thank those groups for their willingness to cooperate. This made it possible for the draft report to be approved unanimously by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 23 January.
The EIB is doing a good job, and we take a positive view of it, within the context of a year like 2005, when the European economy was relatively stagnant and we had the sense that the structural component of our economy, its growth potential, was, in relative and comparative terms, lower than that of the other developed regions of the world.
This is an important approach to take when assessing the EIB’s economic actions. Those actions, ultimately aimed at enhancing the European Union’s physical resources in the form of infrastructures, make it possible to improve the Union’s growth potential. The new approach, which has been present in the EIB’s activities since 2005, geared towards small and medium-sized businesses – which unquestionably form the European Union’s backbone – is another positive approach, which we welcome and which will be implemented accordingly.
We believe that the main focuses of its action, that is to say, to promote the European Union’s economic and social cohesion, the Innovation 2010 initiative, the protection of the environment, the development of the trans-European networks and the contribution to the European external cooperation and development aid policy, have been carried out in a satisfactory manner.
In the report we introduce a first suggestion, which is to question whether the EIB has sufficient resources to implement such ambitious policies. As a public Bank, the EIB is comparatively small when compared to the public Banks of the countries making up the European Union.
With regard to the principal objectives, we advise the EIB to continue working particularly in the least-developed regions, with a view to promoting ‘catching up’. We also recommend that it focus its investment efforts on those less developed regions, on projects relating to innovation and the knowledge-based society."@en1
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