Europees Parlement steunt plannen voor staatssteun aan innovatieve projecten (en)

How can state aid in the European Union be best allocated? An action plan put forward by the European Commission would reduce the amount of such aid and target it on growth and employment as part of the Lisbon strategy. Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee backed this approach in a draft report which was adopted unopposed with one abstention on 24 January.

The report, by Gunnar HÖKMARK (EPP-ED, SE), is intended as Parliament's contribution to the new Commission action plan. MEPs note that the level of aid, which varies greatly between Member States, has "the potential of causing considerable market distortions". They believe that state aid should be only be used a final resort and should "be of a temporary nature", with its application being carefully monitored and evaluated.

The overall amount of aid should be reduced and it should be directed towards areas such as research, innovation and environmental protection. MEPs would like state aid to be targeted at start-up companies or new, innovative small firms. "We can see very few examples where new inventions have had broad political support. More often the political interest has been focused on already existing industries", says the rapporteur, who believes such choices have damaged "future growth and the emergence of new jobs".

The report also urges that Member States be required to publish a list of recipients of state aid and for companies to be obliged to publish details of subsidies received, so as "to enable shareholders to better evaluate the real performance of the company".

Since state aid is also an instrument of regional policy, the Commission wishes to redefine the guidelines for this purpose. MEPs want the granting of aid to "focus on investments in

infrastructure and horizontal aid in disadvantaged or least developed regions of the

European Union".

Member States devote widely differing proportions of their national resources to state aid: in 2003 Poland and the Czech Republic spent 2.76% of GDP on such aid, as compared to 0.57% by France and 0.26% by the United Kingdom. According to MEPs, the total amount of state aid granted each year in the EU is equivalent to around 50% of the EU's annual budget, " even by the most conservative estimates ".

Referentie :

2006/01/24 09:00:00

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Chair : Pervenche Bérès (FR) - PES

Procedure: Own-initiative

Plenary vote: February, Strasbourg

REF.: 20060120IPR04558