EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/74

(2004/C 78 E/0073)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-2080/03

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(17 June 2003)

Subject: Summary of subsidies to undertakings

I understand that varying amounts of subsidies both from the Member States and from the EU's structural funds are constantly being transferred to a variety of undertakings in the EU.

Does the Commission possess a summary of how much money the different undertakings receive, on the one hand in the form of state aid approved by the EU, and on the other hand in the form of contributions from the EU's structural funds?

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(18 July 2003)

The Commission publishes a State aid Scoreboard twice each year. The spring version contains detailed information on annual State aid expenditure for each Member State including the objective of the aid and the sector for which it is earmarked. The Scoreboard covers State aid as defined under Article 87(1) of the EC Treaty that is granted by the fifteen Member States and has been examined by the Commission. Accordingly, general measures are not included in the figures. For example, a general tax break for expenditure on research and development is not considered as State aid although it may well appear in Member States national budgets as public support for research and development. Community funds and instruments are not specifically identified in the scoreboard, although the figures include aid granted by national and/or regional authorities which are co-financed by structural funds. The Scoreboard can be consulted on the Commission's website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/state_aid/scoreboard/.

For practical reasons it is not possible, however, to give precise information on the amount of aid awarded to each individual undertaking.

The Commission also publishes regular reports on the Structural Funds (http://europa.eu.int/comm/ regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/repor_fr.htm). This includes a description of the ongoing programmes for each Member State. An evaluation study on the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was carried out in 1999 for the period 1994-1999. (http://europa.eu.int/comm/ regional_policy/sources/docgener/evaluation/sme/index_en.htm).

As regards the financing of the Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006, the Commission bases its analyses on a very detailed database containing the financing plans of each programme measure, as declared by the Member States. The Member States are responsible for the implementation of the measures and the choice of the individual recipients. On the basis of this programming, the amounts of which may vary to take account of the modifications required for economic and social reasons, aid for SMEs (and the handicraft sector) from the Structural Funds is about EUR 21 billion. This accounts for 11 % of the total Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.

The breakdown of the Community funding as a percentage of the total EUR 21 billion is as follows:

— Plant and equipment: 37,3 %;

— Environment-friendly technologies: 3,3 %;

— Business advisory services: 14,1 %;

— Shared business services: 15,6 %;

— Financial engineering: 6,2 %;

— Services in support of the social economy: 3,7 %;

— Vocational training: 4,2 %;