European Parliament resolution on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Growth and Employment Initiative - Measures on financial assistance for innovative and job creating Small- and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) - As at 31 December 1999 (COM(2000) 266 — C5-0507/2000 — 2000/2245(COS))
Date: 2001-01-16
Institutions: Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, European Parliament
Subjects: European Investment Fund, aid to undertakings, economic growth, job creation, small and medium-sized enterprises

18.9.2001

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Official Journal of the European Communities

C 262/71

2.
Notes that granting such bonuses represents current practice in the banking sector, to which EMI/
ECB employees belong, but that the procedures followed in granting and funding the extraordinary bonus
paid deserve to be criticised;

Tuesday 16 January 2001

Cooperation with OLAF Anti-Fraud Office

3. Welcomes the creation of the ECB Anti-Fraud Committee on 1 January 2000, which is composed of
three independent persons with experience in central banking, fraud prevention and detection, and justice
and policing, and expects the Court of Auditors to report on progress in subsequent annual reports;

4. Welcomes the public commitment of the European Central Bank, in its annual report for 1999, to
establish a cooperative relationship with the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF but regrets clear incompat-
ibility between this commitment and the decision by the ECB itself to prevent OLAF from carrying out
internal investigations, pending the ruling by the European Court of Justice;

Need for strict hands-on management

5.
Calls upon the European Central Bank to provide an adequate response to the problems identified by
the Court of Auditors concerning the allocation of an extraordinary bonus, budgetary monitoring and
project management, to give itself the means to resolve the problems concerned and to ensure that such
situations do not recur;

Court of Auditors

Regrets the length of the contradictory procedure which resulted in the publication of the report for

6.
the financial year 1998 in May 2000;

7.
Calls on the Court of Auditors to ensure that its annual report on the operational efficiency of the
management of the European Central Bank is published before September of year N+1, where year N is
the one under consideration;

8.
Calls on the Court of Auditors to report on progress by the European Central Bank in its manage-
ment of information technology systems and list all financial and performance audits carried out by the
European Central Bank;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the European Central Bank, Council, Commission

9.
and Court of Auditors.

*

*

*

12. Financial assistance to SMEs

A5-0335/2000

European Parliament resolution on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament
and the Council: Growth and Employment Initiative & Measures on financial assistance for inno-
vative and job creating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) & As at 31 December 1999
(COM(2000) 266 & C5-0507/2000 & 2000/2245(COS))

The European Parliament,

: having regard to the Commission report (COM(2000) 266 : C5-0507/2000),

: having regard to the Commission communication on the Fifth report of the Commission on the
implementation of the Decision on the provision of Community interest subsidies on loans for small
and medium-sized enterprises extended by the European Investment Bank under its temporary lending
facility (the SME Facility) (COM(2000) 376),

C 262/72

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18.9.2001

Tuesday 16 January 2001

: having regard to Council Decision 98/347/EC on measures of financial assistance for innovative and

job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) : the growth and employment initiative (1),

: having regard to Council Decision 94/217/EC on the provision of Community interest subsidies on
loans for small and medium-sized enterprises extended by the European Investment Bank under its
temporary lending facility (2),

: having regard to the final report on the Third Round Table of Bankers and SMEs adopted on 19 June

2000 and published by the Commission, DG Enterprise,

: having regard to Rule 47(1) of its Rules of Procedure,

: having regard to the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the opinion of

the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy (A5-0335/2000),

A. whereas the crucial importance of encouraging the promotion of SMEs in particular and a regulatory
climate conducive to investment, innovation and entrepreneurship in general, throughout the EU and
candidate countries, was confirmed as a priority at the Lisbon European Council and in the 2001
Employment Guidelines,

B. whereas the Growth and Employment Initiative was set up in 1998 as a multi-annual programme,
stimulated by the decision of the European Parliament to allocate € 450 million for the purpose of
this programme,

C. whereas it is necessary for the European Investment Bank (EIB) to calculate job creation effects not
only on a macroeconomic input-output model but also on empirically based monitoring processes of
real effects,

D. whereas 1999 represents the first full year of the programme, and therefore by definition the start-up

phase,

E. whereas this report on the year 1999 took the first five months of 2000 to reach Parliament’s

Employment Committee,

F. whereas this report stated that formal feedback information from SMEs benefiting from this initiative
would be available in August, but as at mid-September 2000 such information had not been received,

G. whereas it is therefore too early to make any detailed recommendations for alterations to the pro-

gramme for future years or any comments on its success to date,

H. whereas the initial take-up of the European Technology Start-up Facility (ETF) and the SME Guarantee
Facility would suggest that prospects for both facilities are good at this early stage in contrast to the
Joint European Venture Facility (JEV), which has struggled,

I. whereas the EIB has now taken a controlling interest in the European Investment Fund (EIF),

J. whereas the EIB is not directly accountable to EU institutions,

K. whereas Parliament needs to ensure that it can exercise its powers of control over the forms in which

its funds are used and estimate the value of the projects funded,

1. Welcomes the launch of the Growth and Employment Initiative as a positive step to increasing and
improving employment prospects throughout the EU;

Reiterates the importance of enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs in an economic environment

2.
that has to face the challenge of economic globalisation;

Notes that Europe is lagging far behind the United States in terms of the amount of risk capital

3.
deployed (€ 7 billion as against € 12 billion in 1998);

(1) OJ L 155, 29.5.1998, p. 43.
(2) OJ L 107, 28.4.1994, p. 57.

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Tuesday 16 January 2001

4.
Deplores the fact that the European financial system does not provide adequate access to capital and
that the ‘risk culture’ is still too far removed from the everyday practice of banks, which, on the contrary,
demand a great deal in the way of guarantees;

5.

Deplores the time taken for the first annual report to reach the Parliament’s Employment Committee;

6.
Requests that future annual reports should be sent to Parliament much earlier than May, ideally by
no later than the end of March each year, so that Parliament can have a meaningful input in time to shape
the following year’s programme;

Considers that the basic process of report preparation should be streamlined and made more efficient

7.
for the future;

8.
Requests that such future reports should include research feedback provided by users of such funds,
specifically in terms of the quality and sustainability of jobs created but also on the transparency of pro-
cedures, accessibility, costs and bureaucracy attached to such funds;

9.
Urges the Member States whose enterprises have not yet made use of the three programmes to
promote the programmes and encourage financial institutions and SME organisations to use them in the
interests of job creation; and to make the administrative, legal, and official environment more favourable
and accessible to small undertakings and innovation, by means of simplified procedures which are similar
in the various Member States;

10.
Calls on the Commission and the EIB to implement an effective ongoing monitoring process for all
instruments of the Growth and Employment Initiative in order to provide realistic data about the job
creation effects (gender of new employees, quality and sustainability of jobs, average per capita EU spend-
ing for newly created jobs);

11.
Suggests that research from non-users would also be helpful to examine what changes might
improve take-up of such funds, together with an analysis of reasons for the differential take-up by country;

Asks to be involved in contributing to the design of such research, and to be kept informed of

12.
progress on an ongoing basis;

Congratulates the EIB on the so far highly successful results : which should nonetheless be verified
13.
on a more detailed basis as soon as possible : of the provision of Community interest subsidies on loans
for SMEs under its temporary lending facility;

14.
Notes the expertise of the EIB in the area of venture capital, while registering concern about the
absorption of the EIF; calls for clear reassurance from the EIB about its commitment to the Growth and
Employment Initiative and its willingness to be accountable to EU institutions for its development and
success;

Recommends the EIB to produce similar evaluation reports regarding the impact on growth and

15.
employment of the EIB’s and EIF’s activities in general;

16.
Seeks confirmation from the EIB that available funds will not be confined exclusively to those SMEs
involved in high technology and knowledge-based industries, but that small craft, trade, tourism and other
services enterprises, including the third sector, may also have full opportunity to benefit;

17.
Expresses its concern about the excessively narrow concept of providing risk capital and global
loans mainly to SMEs engaging in life sciences, biotechnology, ITC and multimedia; calls on the Commi-
ssion, the Council and the EIB to open up the facilities of the Growth and Employment Initiative also to
sustainable high-tech sectors, e.g. fuel cell technologies, photovoltaics, solar heating, solar-hydrogen tech-
nology, bionics, combined heat and electricity generation, etc.;

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Tuesday 16 January 2001

18.
Calls for action to ensure that access may be gained to an effective risk capital system : which is
vital to the competitiveness of European undertakings, particularly SMEs : not just in major financial
centres but also at regional level and that arrangements are made for coordination with the Structural
Funds and the Cohesion Fund, and that the system for access to credit, which often constitutes an obstacle
to development for SMEs, is made easier and simpler;

19.
Calls on the Court of Auditors to include the ETF Start-up Facility and the JEV Facility in the early
work programme for full audit, alongside the SME Guarantee Facility audit already planned, so that the
conclusions can be published in the next annual report and duly considered by Parliament;

20.
Calls on the Member States to review bilateral agreements to remove double taxation, which is one
obstacle to the successful roll-out of the JEV programme, and to recognise that other changes in national
taxation may also be desirable; more generally, urges Member States to reach early agreement on the
European Company Statute;

21.
Calls on the Member States to transpose European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/35/EC on
late payment in commercial transactions as soon as possible, as delays of this kind have a serious adverse
effect on the development of SMEs;

Calls on the Commission and the EIB to promote more clearly to finance intermediaries and busi-
22.
ness support providers the message that raising female participation rates is an important part of the
European employment strategy, including in the field of supporting start-ups and SMEs;

23.
Calls for the SMEs receiving assistance from the Fifth Research and Technological Development
Framework Programme to be better informed of the existence of the three programmes in order to ensure
a link between research programmes and implementation of their results, since implementation often
necessitates collaboration between enterprises (JEV) and creates a need for funding (ETF Start-up and Guar-
antee Facility) within the European research area;

24.
Calls for implementation of the three programmes to be coordinated with that of the Fourth Multi-
annual Programme for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, which will come into force in 2001, and all other
action taken by the Commission that is likely to make it easier for the objectives of the programmes to be
met;

25.
Calls on the Commission and the EIB to be more transparent for SME end-users and trade unions
regarding the specific purpose and eligibility criteria of the instruments of the Amsterdam Special Action
Programme (Growth and Employment Initiative, Growth and Environment Scheme, EIF Innovation Facility,
etc) and to streamline these initiatives to generate synergy effects;

26.
Calls on the Commission, therefore, to consider seriously the proposal already submitted by the
European Venture Capital Association, ‘to encourage each Member State to adopt tax and business organi-
sation laws permitting funds to be created in their country based on the principle of transparency and to
recognise as transparent funds established in a similar way in other Member States and/or to create a single
European structure for venture capital and private equity investment funds based on the principle of trans-
parency which could be chosen instead of any national structure’;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the European

27.
Investment Bank.