Brussels, 15.12.2004

COM(2004) 803 final

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the implementation of Council Regulation No 382/2001 concerning the implementation of projects and programmes promoting cooperation and commercial relations between the European Union and the industrialised countries of North America, the Far East and Australasia

1. INTRODUCTION

Council Regulation (EC) No 382/2001 of 28 February 2001 (referred to below as “the Regulation”) provides a legal framework for the development of cooperation and the consolidation of the EU’s trade relations with the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The Community’s activities can be broken down into two main areas.

- Cooperation activities potentially cover a large range of areas for each of the six partner countries: education, information, cultural and academic links, environment, transport, energy, customs, science and technology etc. The general objective here is to foster a climate conducive to the strengthening and expansion of relations between the EU and its partners in line with the objectives laid down by the various bilateral instruments that give structure to those relations (e.g. cooperation agreements, joint political declarations, action plans etc.)

- Activities aimed at promoting trade relations relate only to Japan and Korea. The objective is to take action that complements Member States’ initiatives, in such a way as to improve the market presence of European companies in Japan and Korea and boost their exports to those countries.

The Regulation entered into force in March 2001 and will remain in force until the end of 2005. This report covers implementation from 2001 to 2003.

2. OVERVIEW

The table below shows the amount of commitment appropriations allocated by the budget authority from the budget heading “Cooperation with industrialised non-member countries”.

in euro

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The Regulation makes it possible to take an integrated approach to programmes promoting trade relations and a whole range of cooperation activities with the industrialised countries, resulting more often than not in pilot projects with no separate legal basis. The ratio of cooperation activities to trade-promotion activities (around 1:3) is broadly the same as before 2001.

The table below gives the budget breakdown for each year (in euro).

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On the cooperation front, the Community’s activities most commonly take the form of individual projects proposed, developed and cofinanced by organisations and institutions from the partner countries or the EU (on the basis of terms of reference drawn up by the Commission), for the mutual benefit of the participants (recipients and Commission) and partners (non-member countries and the EU). For trade promotion, the Commission tends work through integrated programmes, the various parts of which are organised and coordinated with the help of service-providers. Participation in these integrated programmes is open to all European companies and executives from European companies, subject to certain eligibility and selection criteria.

3. PROMOTION OF TRADE RELATIONS

The Regulation calls on the Commission to fund the “Gateway to Japan” campaign and to continue funding “Executive Training Programmes” (ETPs).

3.1. “Gateway to Japan”

3.1.1. Closing of the second “Gateway to Japan” campaign

Gateway to Japan gives direct support to European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), helping them to get a foothold or consolidate their position on the Japanese market. The second campaign, targeted on ten economic sectors, covered the period from 1997-2001. Six trade missions were organised in the last year of the campaign, which received €2.2 million of funding from the 2001 budget. The table below shows the results of those missions.

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3.1.2. Launch of the third Gateway to Japan campaign

The third Gateway to Japan campaign will be implemented from 2002 to 2006. There will be four annual cycles of trade missions in eight sectors[1] The aim is to help establish around 880 European SMEs on the Japanese market.

The total maximum budget (excluding the impact of enlargement) for this campaign is around €14.2 million, spread out over a number of years. This amount was set in the light of the responses to a call for tenders aimed at selecting contractors in Europe (promotion of the programme in the Member States and recruitment and preparation of participating companies) and in Japan (logistics for the missions and organisation of public relations in Japan) for implementation of the campaign. The budgetary amounts for 2002 and 2003 are sufficient for 19 trade missions.

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Of the 380 SMEs that applied, 200 were selected and took part in one of the first eight missions in 2002/03, in which 1 634 potential Japanese partners also took part. The level of satisfaction amongst the European participants is measured at the end of each mission: 86% of participants said they were satisfied or very satisfied; more than 85% looked forward to increasing their exports to Japan and 45% were planning new investment on the basis of new contracts concluded as a result of Gateway missions.

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As for participation, 43 executives out of 89 applicants were selected to take part in ETP 21, 38 out of 78 in ETP 22, and 37 out of 82 for ETP 23, representing 14 of the 15 Member States.

In 2003, a survey was conducted of all the people who had taken part in ETP since the programme’s inception (almost 850 in total). The survey revealed the lasting positive impact of the programme in terms of career and personal development, development of professional skills and improved performance on the Japanese market in particular and on Asian markets as a whole.

3.2.2. ETP Korea

The inspiration for the ETP Korea programme came from ETP Japan. It was launched in 2001. For reasons of consistency, promotion of the programme and recruitment and selection of candidates is organised jointly with ETP Japan. However, the teaching side of the programme is organised separately. The budget for that in 2001-03 is shown in the following table.

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Of 18 applicants, 11 were chosen for ETP1; 10 out of 19 were chosen for ETP2.

4. COOPERATION ACTIVITIES

The Commission tried to target funding for cooperation activities on a few areas and objectives expected to have the biggest potential impact.

The primary objective was to raise the profile of the EU in the partner countries and familiarise people with it, so as to give them a better understanding of the EU and of bilateral relations between the EU and the partner countries.

Accordingly, the most important cooperation initiative relating to the countries covered by the Regulation was the consolidation and extension of the network of EU centres in the partner countries. This major initiative was complemented by other activities on a smaller scale.

4.1. The EU centres

The first pilot EU centre was set up in the United States in 1998. In the period from 2001 to 2003, the US centre became firmly established and other centres were set up, first in Canada, then in Australia, New Zealand and, lastly, Japan. The EU centres are all located in major universities in partner countries that cofinance them. Their purpose is to promote better understanding of the European Union, its institutions, history and policies in the partner countries, and they do this through:

- the creation and development of courses and stimulation of research focusing on European issues;

- seminars, conferences and other events, and the development of information tools on the EU;

- the development of academic visit and exchange programmes.

This has led to the creation of over 250 new modules and courses on European issues, and over 1 700 published pieces of research and over 450 doctoral theses have benefited from the initiative. The EU centres are estimated to have given over 42 000 postgraduates the chance to learn more about the EU.

Community grants were given to fifteen centres in the United States, five in Canada, one in Australia, one in New Zealand and one in Japan. The budget impact of the initiative is summarised in the table below.

in euro

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4.2. Other areas of cooperation

Other projects received Community support between 2001 and 2003 where they matched the cooperation priorities and political agendas for the partner country in question. Amongst these projects, the most notable were concerned with:

- support for public-diplomacy initiatives (political studies, conferences, symposia etc.) and for dialogue between consumer organisations, trade unions, social partners and business interests in the EU and the partner countries;

- the development of person-to-person links, e.g. through cooperation in the field of higher education with Australia and New Zealand.

Lastly, there were other, smaller initiatives, responding to more ad hoc priorities (e.g. the information campaign on the euro, seminars on enlargement etc.) The budget impact of these activities in the period from 2001 to 2003 is summarised in the table below.

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4.3. Summary of the use of appropriations from 2001 to 2003

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5. EVALUATION OF ACTIVITIES

A programme evaluation was carried out in 2004. It focussed on the EU centres, the ETP and “Gateway to Japan”, which together account for more than 90% of EU funding. The main lessons are as follows:

- EU centres in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand:

- the initiative is developing satisfactorily as a whole and delivers a good return on investment;

- the initiative should be continued and, if possible, the idea of EU centres should be extended to other countries and regions;

- Executive Training Programme and Gateway to Japan:

- both programmes serve to increase European exports to Japan and Korea and they are deemed to be sufficiently effective on the whole;

- conditions and practices on the Japanese and Korean markets have changed but special support for European businesses is still warranted;

- the Community initiatives complement initiatives at Member State level and enlargement has created new scope for developing the programmes;

- both programmes are seen as being relevant and worth continuing;

The Commission has begun to implement the recommendations resulting from the evaluation on how to take the programmes and initiatives forwards and develop them further.

[1] Health care (HC), environmental technology (ET), information and communications technology (ICT), interior lifestyle (INT), outdoor activities (OUT), construction materials (CM), food and drinks (F&D) and young fashion designers (YFD).