Proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks (98/C 175/07) (Text with EEA relevance) COM(1998) 172 final - 98/0101(SYN)

(Submitted by the Commission on 19 March 1998)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular the third paragraph of Article 129d thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the Economical and Social Committee,

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions,

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 189c of the Treaty, in cooperation with the European Parliament,

(1) Whereas experience with the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 (1) has demonstrated that a number of amendments need to be made thereto;

(2) Whereas Community financial participation provided for under that Regulation may exceed the limit of 50 % for studies undertaken on the initiative of the Commission; whereas it is necessary to facilitate the financing of certain projects by including, among the possible forms of aid, contributions to the formation of risk capital; whereas it is desirable to use the financial resources provided under Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 in order to maximise the contribution from private finance;

(3) Whereas provision should be made so that certain projects related to more than one Member State, or contributing strongly to the broader trans-European interest, including those with an important environmental dimension, may receive an increased level of support;

(4) Whereas it is desirable, in order to increase transparency and to meet expectations for projects or groups of projects having important financial needs for a long period, that indicative multiannual programmes in specific sectors or fields should be drawn up; whereas those programmes should indicate the total amount of support which could be allocated for a given period to such projects or groups of projects, and decisions should be taken to grant financial aid when they conform to the relevant indicative multiannual programmes;

(5) Whereas it is necessary to specify that bodies directly concerned with projects or groups of projects and submitting applications for financial aid, if they are enterprises, may be either public or private; whereas it is necessary to specify the date by which the agreement of the Member State(s) concerned on an application submitted under the Regulation is to reach the Commission;

(6) Whereas projects or groups of projects should be able to benefit from successive financial assistance decisions;

(7) Whereas financial aids granted should be cancelled if the actions concerned have not been started by a given date;

(8) Whereas it is necessary to include the activities of the European Investment Fund among the Community financial instruments with which action under Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 is required to be coordinated;

(9) Whereas the Commission should be able to require beneficiaries to provide evaluations of projects supported under Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 or the necessary information to allow the Commission to undertake its own evaluation;

(10) Whereas it is necessary to specify the manner in which beneficiaries should publicise Community contributions;

(11) Whereas, throughout the transitional period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001, all references to the euro should be read as references to the euro as a monetary unit as referred to in Council Regulation (EC) No . . ./98 of . . . 1998 [on the introduction of the euro];

(12) Whereas Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 should therefore be amended accordingly;

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 is hereby amended as follows:

1. Article 3 is deleted.

2. Article 4 is replaced by the following:

'Article 4

Forms of aid

1. Community aid for projects may take one or several of the following forms:

(a) co-financing of studies related to projects, including preparatory, feasibility and evaluation studies, and other technical support measures for these studies.

Community participation may in general not exceed 50 % of the total cost of a study.

In exceptional cases, at the initiative of the Commission and with the consent of the Member States concerned, Community participation may exceed the limit of 50 %, in particular for studies undertaken at the initiative of the Commission;

(b) subsidies of the interest on loans granted by the European Investment Bank or other public or private financial bodies;

(c) contributions towards fees for guarantees for loans from the European Investment Fund or other financial institutions;

(d) direct grants to investments in duly justified cases;

(e) grants or risk-capital participation, for investment funds or comparable financial undertakings with a priority focus on providing risk capital for trans-European network projects;

(f) Community assistance under points (a) to (d) shall be combined where appropriate, in order to maximise the stimulus provided by the budgetary resources deployed, which shall be used in the most economical way.

2. The forms of Community aid referred to under points (a) to (e) shall be used selectively to take account of the specific characteristics of the various types of network involved and to ensure that such aid does not cause distortions of competition between undertakings in the sector concerned.

3. The Commission shall seek to maximise the multiplier effect of the financial resources provided for by this Regulation by promoting recourse to private sources of financing.`

3. The following subparagraph is added to Article 5(3):

'However in the case of projects related to more than one Member State, or contributing strongly to the broader trans-European interest, including those having an important environmental dimension, the total amount of Community aid under this Regulation may reach 20 % of the total investment cost`.

4. The following Article 5a is inserted:

'Article 5a

Indicative multiannual programme

1. Without prejudice to the application of Article 6 and in order to improve the efficiency of the Community's action, the Commission may, in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 17, elaborate by sector an indicative multiannual programme for granting financial resources (hereinafter called "programme") on the basis of the guidelines referred to in Article 129c of the Treaty. The programme shall reflect, inter alia, information provided by Member States.

2. A programme may be composed of projects of common interest and/or coherent groups of projects of common interest in specific fields having substantial financial needs over a long period.

3. For each project or group of projects referred to in paragraph 2 the Commission shall establish the indicative global amounts for the granting of financial aid for the programme's time period.

4. The programme shall serve as a reference for the annual decisions allocating the Community financial resources set out in this Regulation. It shall be revised at mid-term or in the light of the effective progress of the project(s) or group(s) of projects, in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 17. The programme shall also give an indication of other sources of financing for the projects concerned, in particular from other Community instruments and the European Investment Bank.`

5. Article 8 is replaced by the following:

'Article 8

Submission of applications for financial aid

Applications for financial aid shall be submitted to the Commission by the Member State(s) concerned or, with the agreement of the Member State(s), by the public or private undertakings or body directly concerned. The Commission shall take note of the agreement of the Member State(s) concerned no later than in the course of the procedure set out in Article 17`.

6. Article 10 is replaced by the following:

'Article 10

Grant of financial aid

The Commission shall decide to grant financial aid under this Regulation according to its assessment of the application in accordance with the selection criteria. With the exception of decisions concerning projects identified in the relevant indicative multiannual programme established pursuant to Article 5a, and within the indicative financial allocations provided for in that programme, decisions to grant aid shall be taken in accordance with the procedure specified in Article 17. The Commission shall notify its decision directly to the beneficiaries and to the Member States`.

7. Article 11 is amended as follows:

(a) Paragraph 3 is replaced by the following:

'3. Budgetary commitments shall be carried out on the basis of decisions to grant aid taken by the Commission. The commitment of the total amount of aid shall be made when the Commission adopts the decision to grant aid`.

(b) A new paragraph 3a is inserted as follows:

'3a Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 3, for interventions for which the responsible authority is a Member State, whose duration is equal to or greater than two years and for which Community aid exceeds ECU 25 million, commitments shall be made annually. The first commitment shall be made when the Commission adopts the decision granting financial aid. Commitments in respect of subsequent annual instalments shall be based on the initial or revised financing plan for the project and shall normally be made at the beginning of each budget year and no later than 1 March of the current year, based on the expenditure forecasts for the project for that year`.

(c) Paragraph 7 is replaced by the following:

'7. The Commission shall determine, following the procedures set out in Article 17, the procedures, timetable and amounts for payments of interest-rate subsidies, guarantee premium subsidies and support in the form of grants or risk capital participation, for investment funds or comparable financial undertakings with a priority focus on providing risk capital for trans-European network projects`.

8. The introductory phrase to Article 12(1) is replaced by the following:

'In order to guarantee successful completion of projects financed by this Regulation, Member States and the Commission, each in its field of competence, shall take the necessary measures to:`

9. In Article 13, the following paragraph 2a is inserted:

'2a Except in cases duly justified to the Commission, aids granted to projects which have not started within two years following the date of their expected start, as indicated in the decision granting assistance, will be cancelled by the Commission`.

10. Article 14 is replaced by the following:

'Article 14

Coordination

The Commission shall be responsible for coordination and coherence between the projects and, where necessary, the programmes referred to in Article 5a(1), undertaken under this Regulation and projects undertaken with the help of contributions from the Community budget, the European Investment Bank, the European Investment Fund and other Community financial instruments`.

11. Article 15 is replaced by the following:

'Article 15

Appraisal, monitoring and evaluation

1. The Member States and the Commission shall ensure that the implementation of projects under this Regulation is subject to effective monitoring and evaluation. Projects may be adapted according to monitoring and evaluation results.

2. In order to ensure that Community aid is used efficiently, the Commission and the Member States concerned shall systematically monitor progress with projects, where appropriate with the cooperation of the European Investment Bank or other appropriate bodies.

3. On receipt of an application for aid, and before approving it, the Commission shall carry out an appraisal in order to assess the project's conformity with the conditions and criteria laid down in Articles 5 and 6. Where necessary, the Commission shall invite the European Investment Bank or other appropriate bodies to contribute to this appraisal.

4. The Commission and the Member States shall assess the manner in which the projects and the programmes have been carried out and evaluate the impact of their implementation, in order to assess whether the original objectives can be, or have been, achieved. This evaluation shall, inter alia, cover the impact of projects on the environment, regard being had to the Community laws in force. The Commission may also require the beneficiary to provide a specific evaluation on projects or groups of projects supported under this Regulation, or to provide it with the information and the assistance required to evaluate such projects.

5. Monitoring shall be carried out, where appropriate, by reference to physical and financial indicators. The indicators shall relate to the specific character of the projects and their objectives. They shall be arranged in such a way as to show:

- the stage of the project reached in relation to the plan and the operational objectives originally laid down,

- the progress achieved on the management side and any related problems.

6. In vetting individual applications for assistance, the Commission shall take into account the findings of appraisals and evaluations made in accordance with this Article.

7. Procedures for evaluation and monitoring, as provided in paragraphs 4 and 5, shall be established in the Decisions approving the projects and/or in the contractual provisions relating to the financial aid.`

12. The second sentence of Article 16(2) is replaced by the following:

'They shall ensure, in particular in the case of infrastructure works, that directly visible display panels are erected bearing the Community logo and the expression "Trans-European networks". In the case of studies and/or any other documents concerning a project, they shall ensure that they carry the Community logo`.

13. Throughout the text, the term 'ecu` is replaced by 'euro`.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

Point 13 of Article 2 shall apply from 1 January 1999.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

(1) OJ L 228, 23.9.1995, p. 1.