WRITTEN QUESTION E-2466/02 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. Loans.
Date: 2002-09-04
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Belarus, Community loan, Mediterranean third countries, Moldova, Türkiye, Ukraine, accession to the European Union, gross domestic product

C 161 E/24

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

10.7.2003

Adjustments or changes to transactions can only be made by authorised staff. Access to data is
9.
strictly controlled. The history of each transaction is available in the system, including a complete list of all
the approvals given and changes made back to the origin of the transaction. There is also a reference to
the physical location of the documents underlying the transaction.

The Court of Auditors has criticised access by system technicians. Improvements have been made and are
still on-going.

In the limited and decreasing number of cases where technical adjustments to the system are necessary
(for example, to eliminate computer programme ‘bugs’), the justification for any such measure is assessed
before being approved and the changes made are documented. In the very rare cases where a bug causes
an error in a transaction, the incorrect data are replaced by the correct data. Again, these cases are fully
analysed and approved before action is taken and all action is documented.

10. and 11.
The Commission consulted its Legal Service on the statutory conditions pertaining to a
possible attendance. It is normal practice to do this. The Commission does not normally discuss in public
purely internal matters of this kind.

Statutory obligations of discretion, whose legitimacy has been constantly upheld by the Court of Justice,
and the fact that disciplinary proceedings were in progress raised obvious questions of confidentiality.

(1) Most of these controls have always been carried out and are provided for by the Financial Regulation, OJ L 240,

7.10.1995.

(2) http://www.cc.cec/budg/lex/fr/droit/mod_exec/index.htm.

(2003/C 161 E/025)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2466/02

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(4 September 2002)

Subject: Loans

1. Will the Commission give the amount of loans disbursed in each of the last five years in the EU
candidate countries including Turkey, and also in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova?

2. Will it further detail the equivalent figures for disbursements to each non-EU country on the littoral
of the Mediterranean sea?

3. Will it further express the cumulative total for the five years as a percentage of each country’s GDP
and as an amount per head of each country?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(30 October 2002)

A set of tables which provide the information requested has been sent directly to the Honourable Member
and to Parliament’s Secretariat.

Please note, however, that the Commission does not have figures on European Investment Bank (EIB) loan
disbursements at the level of detail requested. Tables 2 and 3 sent directly to the Honourable Member and
to Parliament’s secretariat provide instead the figures for loans signed by the EIB in the respective years. As
additional
information, a column indicating the total amounts disbursed up to 31 December 2001 is
added.

10.7.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 161 E/25

Further information on Community lending activity can be found in the following reports published
regularly by the Commission:

(cid:1) Report from the Commission to the budgetary authority on guarantees covered by the general budget

(cid:1) situation at 31 December 2001 (1);

(cid:1) Report from the Commission to the Council and the Parliament on the borrowing and lending

activities of the Community in 2000 (2).

(1) http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/fr/com/rpt/2002/com2002_0237fr01.pdf.
(2) http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/fr/com/rpt/2001/com2001_0435fr01.pdf.

(2003/C 161 E/026)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2486/02

by Rosa Miguélez Ramos (PSE) to the Commission

(6 September 2002)

Subject: Captive market in salmon

The EC’s trading relations with third countries in the salmon sector are characterised by the defence of the
interests of a group of Community producers who enjoy a captive market for their products, at the
expense of the Community’s consumers, who have to pay artificially high prices for salmon from Norway,
the Faeroe Islands and Chile (the EU has recently signed an association agreement with the last-named
country). These producers now aim to prolong their privileged status by laying unfounded charges of
dumping on their third-country competitors and imposing tariffs on salmon from Chile and the Faeroe
Islands as a means of reducing the unpopularity of their products among consumers in the EC.

In what ways has the market been affected by the agreement signed by the Commission with Norway in
1997 (cid:1) valid for five years and due to expire on 1 July 2002 (cid:1) on minimum prices for imports of
Norwegian salmon? Can the Commission confirm that there will be no renewal of the minimum price
the interests of Community consumers by making salmon artificially
clause, which works against
expensive?

What action does the Commission intend to take to defend the interests of consumers in the Community
and allow them free access to salmon from Chile, the Faeroe Islands, etc, given that this would be in the
interests of competition and product quality?

Does the Commission not consider that the virtual restriction of the Community market to Scottish and
Irish producers has resulted in a prevalence of low-quality salmon in the Community, while Chilean
salmon, by contrast, is not affected environmental problems?

Answer given by Mr Lamy on behalf of the Commission

(30 October 2002)

As concerns the opening of an anti-dumping proceeding concerning imports of farmed Atlantic salmon
originating in Chile and the Faeroe Islands, it should first be recalled that any anti-dumping complaint
brought before the Commission has to include prima facie evidence of dumping by imports from third
countries, injury to the Community industry and of the causal link between the two. In addition, the
Commission is obliged to carry out a preliminary assessment of the accuracy and adequacy of the evidence
provided in the complaint and seek the opinion of the Advisory Committee composed of representatives
of the Member States before a proceeding is initiated. These measures are designed to ensure that only
legitimate complaints result in the opening of formal proceedings. All these conditions were fulfilled for
the opening of the above-mentioned anti-dumping proceeding therefore it cannot be said that the charges
by the Community industry of dumping were unfounded. It should also be noted there are no measures in
place against imports from either Chile or the Faeroe Islands since the investigation was initiated only in
July 2002.

The only trade defence measures currently in force in the Community for this product are those imposed
in 1997 on imports originating in Norway consisting of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties underpinned
by a system of minimum import price undertakings accepted from individual exporters. In parallel to these
measures, the so called ‘EU-Norway Salmon Agreement’ was signed in 1997 by the Commission and the
Norwegian authorities and provides for, inter alia, the levying of an export tax of 3 % by the Norwegian