WRITTEN QUESTION E-0929/98

by Concepció Ferrer (PPE) to the Commission

(26 March 1998)

Subject: Aid for small and medium-sized enterprises

The European Union allocates a large amount of resources to measures to boost small and medium-sized enterprises - the funds allocated amount to around ECU 1000 million for the period 1994-1999.

Despite the size of the allocation, the desired results are far from being achieved, as the report of the Court of Auditors points out, due to problems in the procedures for the coordination, monitoring and control of aid and the lack of a coherent strategy, and the analyses carried out by the Member States and the Commission do not make it possible to conclude that net job creation can in fact be attributed to the measures funded.

What plans does the Commission have for the period 1999-2004 to remedy the shortcomings identified by the Court of Auditors in the management of measures in favour of small and medium-sized undertakings?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission

(2 June 1998)

The Honourable Member refers to the Community initiative on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which has a budget of ECU 1 billion for the period 1994-1999. When the Commission replied to the Honourable Member's written question E-930/98(1), it provided statistics on the commitments and payments for this Community initiative which showed that 51 % of the funds were committed and almost 30 % paid.

The Structural Funds - the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund in particular - have a significant impact on the development of SMEs through the operational programmes, the Community initiatives and the pilot projects that they finance. The Structural Funds are providing some ECU 20 billion to SMEs in the current programming period. These appropriations do not include operations that involve enterprises indirectly - the provision of infrastructure, for example. The Commission has also begun a theme-based evaluation of the impact of the Structural Funds on SMEs; its results, which will be available at the end of 1998, should contribute to improving the Structural Funds' contribution to the development of SMEs in the new programming period 2000-2006.

It is worth pointing out that Member States are primarily responsible for developing and implementing the programmes, and for project selection in particular. In the next programming period, the Member States will see their overall responsibility for programme implementation and monitoring explicitly enhanced in the regulations if Parliament and the Council adopt the thrust of the Commission's proposal for greater decentralisation and simplification of the Funds. The proposed expanded partnership, which will include the economic and social actors, is also likely to help improve the management of operational programmes that include measures in favour of SMEs.

The Commission will work to provide an appropriate follow-up to the Court of Auditors' report and to supply the information needed to reply to the comments contained in it.

Lastly, as requested by the Council in its resolution of 9 December 1996(2), the Commission, as coordinator of the Community's SME policies, has started to prepare a recommendation on the ways SME access to Community programmes can be improved. The recommendation will cover Community programmes with a significant impact on the development of SMEs, examples being the Structural Funds, research and innovation.

(1) OJ C 354, 19.11.1998, p. 40.

(2) OJ C 18, 17.1.1997.