BETA

23 Amendments of Isabella ADINOLFI related to 2016/0282(COD)

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 49

(49) In order to ensure that the Commission has all the necessary information for the adoption of the financing decisions, it is necessary to lay down the minimum requirements for the contents of financing decisions on grants, procurement, trust funds, prizes, financial instruments, blending facilities and budgetary guarantees. At the same time, in order to give a longer-term perspective to the potential recipients, it is necessary to allow that the financing decisions are adopted for more than one year but the implementation being subject to the availability of budget appropriations for the respective year. In order to enable such longer-term perspective it is necessary to reduce the number of the elements required for the financing decision. With the aim of simplification, the financing decision should at the same time constitute an annual or multi-annual programme. Since the contribution to the bodies referred to in Articles 69 and 70 is already established in the annual budget, it should not be required to adopt a specific financing decision in this respect.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 136

(136) In recent years the Union has increasingly used financial instruments that should allow a higher leverage of the EU budget to be achieved but, at the same time, they generate a financial risk for that budget. Among those financial instruments are not only the financial instruments already covered by the Financial Regulation, but also other instruments such as budgetary guarantees and financial assistance that previously have been governed only by the rules established in their respective basic acts. It is important to establish a common framework to ensure the homogeneity of the principles applicable to that set of instruments and to regroup them under a new Title, comprising sections on budgetary guarantees and on financial assistance to Member States or third countries in addition to the existing rules applicable to Financial Instruments.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 146

(146) Budgetary guarantees and financial assistance to Member States ~~or third countries~~ are off-budget operations that have a significant impact on the balance sheet of the Union. While remaining off- budget operations, their inclusion in the Financial Regulation provides a stronger protection of the financial interests of the Union and a clearer framework for their authorisation, management and accounting.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 147

(147) The Union has recently launched important initiatives based on budgetary guarantees such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) or the European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD). The characteristics of those instruments are that they should generate a contingent liability for the Union and imply the provisioning of funds to make available of a liquidity cushion that allows the budget to respond in an orderly manner to the payment obligations that may arise from those contingent liabilities. In order to guarantee the credit rating of the Union and, hence, its capacity to deliver effective financing, it is essential that the authorisation, provisioning and monitoring of contingent liabilities follow a robust set of rules that should be applied to all budgetary guarantees.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 148

(148) ~~The contingent liabilities arising from budget~~In November 2016, the European Court of Auditors reported that EFSI extension was proposed too early ~~guarantees may cover a wide range of financing and investment operations~~and with little evidence to show that its increase is justified. Moreover, the ECA underlined the prior absence of an independent assessment of the Plan and the risk that the declared multiplier effect has been exaggerated. Due to these uncertainties, it should be better not to convey the ESIFs into EFSI. The possibility of ~~the~~ budgetary guarantee ~~being called~~ cannot be scheduled with full certainty on a yearly basis as in the case of loans that have a defined schedule for repayment. It is, therefore, indispensable to set up a framework for the authorisation and monitoring of contingent liabilities ensuring the full respect, at any moment, of the annual ceiling for payments established in the Decision (EC, Euratom) 2007/436 on the system of own resources of the Union.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 150

(150) The increasing use of financial instruments, budgetary guarantees and financial assistance requires a significant volume of payment appropriations to be mobilised and provisioned. In order to deliver leverage while ensuring an adequate level of protection against financial liabilities, it is important to optimise the amount of provisioning required and to achieve efficiency gains by pooling those provisions into a common provisioning fund. In addition, the more flexible use of those pooled provisions permits an effective global provisioning rate that delivers the protection requested with an optimised amount of resources.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 152

(152) Budgetary guarantees and financial assistance should follow the same set of principles already established for financial instruments. Budgetary guarantees, in particular, should comply with the following principles: they should be irrevocable, unconditional and on demand; they should be indirectly implemented or, only in exceptional cases, directly; they may only cover financing and investment operations and their counterparts should contribute with their own resources to the operations covered.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 153

(153) Financial assistance to Member States or third countries should take the form of a loan, of a credit line or any other instrument deemed appropriate to ensure the effectiveness of the support. The resources to be provided are borrowed by the Commission that should be empowered to that end, ~~on the capital markets or~~ from financial institutions, avoiding the involvement of the Union in any transformation of maturities that would expose it to an interest risk or any other market risk.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 172

(172) With a view to responding to the challenges posed by increasing flows of migrants and refugees, the objectives to which the ERDF may contribute in its support of migrants and refugees should be spelled out. This contribution could, however, be effective, especially in countries particularly exposed to migration flows as Italy, Greece, Malta, only if accompanied by a genuine Europe-wide application of the principle of solidarity, and thus by actions aimed at a fair burden-sharing and at sustainable mutual assistance among the Member States.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 178

(178) In view of optimising the use of the financial resources allocated to Member States under Cohesion policy, it is necessary to allow Member States to transfer ESI Funds allocation to instruments established under the Financial Regulation or under sector specific Regulations.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 182

(182) Many Member States have established publicly-owned banks or financial institutions that operate under a public policy mandate to promote economic development. Such banks or financial institutions have specific characteristics which differentiate them from private commercial banks in relation to their ownership, their development mandate and the fact that they do not have the objective of maximising profits. The role of such banks is notably to mitigate market failures, where in certain regions or for certain policy areas or sectors financial services are underprovided by commercial banks. These publicly-owned banks or financial institutions are well-placed to promote access to the ESI funds while maintaining competitive neutrality. Their specific role and characteristics can allow Member States to increase the use of financial instruments for delivering ESI funds in order to maximise the impact of these funds in the real economy. Such an outcome would be in line with the Commission policy to facilitate the role of such banks or institutions as fund managers both in the implementation of ESI funds as well as in the combination of ESI funds with EFSI financing, as set out in particular in the Investment Plan for Europe. It is justified therefore to allow managing authorities to award contracts directly to such public banks or financial institutions. Nevertheless, in order to ensure that this possibility of direct award remains consistent with the principles of the internal market, strict conditions to be fulfilled by public banks or institutions should be laid down for this provision to be applicable.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 184

(184) In adopting Regulation (EU) 2015/1017 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 June 2015 on the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the European Investment Advisory Hub and the European Investment Project Portal – the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) – it was desired to enable Member States to use ESI Funds to contribute to the financing of eligible projects that are supported by the EU guarantee covered by the EFSI. A specific provision should be introduced to set out the terms and conditions to allow for better interaction and complementarity that will facilitate the possibility to combine ESI funds with EIB financial products under the EFSI’s Union Guarantee.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 188

(188) In order to incentivise private investors to co-invest in public policy projects, the concept of differentiated treatment of investors, which allows under specific conditions that ESI Funds can take a subordinated position to a private investor and EIB financial products under the EFSI’s EU Guarantee, should be introduced. At the same time, the conditions for application of such a differentiated treatment when implementing ESI funds should be laid down.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 189

(189) Given the protracted low interest environment and in order not to unduly penalise bodies implementing financial instruments, it is necessary, subject to active and diligent treasury management, to enable financing of negative interest generated as a result of investments of ESI Funds pursuant to Article 43 of the Common Provisions Regulation from resources paid back into the financial instrument.deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 264 – paragraph 1 – point 1

Regulation (EU) No 1301/2013
Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point e

“investment in the development of endogenous potential through fixed investment in equipment and small-scale infrastructure, including small-scale cultural and sustainable tourism infrastructure, services to enterprises, support to research and innovation bodies and investment in technology and applied research in enterprises; in duly justified cases, the scope of support may be enlarged;”

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 6

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 30a

~~6. The following Article 30a is inserted: [...]~~deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 11 – point a

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 38 – paragraph 1 – point c

(a) In paragraph 1, the following point (c) is inserted: ‘ (c) financial instruments allowing for the combination of such contribution with EIB financial products under the European Fund for Strategic Investment. ‘deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 13

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 39a

~~13. The following Article 39a is inserted: [...]~~deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 15

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 41 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 1 – introductory part

15. in Article 41, in paragraph 1, the introductory sentence of the first subparagraph is replaced by the following: ‘1. referred to in point (a) and (c) of Article 38(1) and financial instruments referred to in point (b) of Article 38(1) implemented in accordance with points (a) and (b) of Article 38(4), phased applications for interim payments shall be made for programme contributions paid to the financial instrument during the eligibility period laid down in Article 65(2) (the “eligibility period”) in accordance with the following conditions:” ‘deleted As regards financial instruments

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 16

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 42 – paragraph 5 – subparagraph 1

16. In Article 42, in paragraph 5, the first subparagraph is replaced by the following: ‘Where management cost and fees as referred to in point (d) of the first subparagraph of paragraph 1 and in paragraph 2 of this Article are charged by the body implementing the fund of funds or bodies implementing financial instruments pursuant to point (c) of Article 38(1) and points (a) and (b) of Article 38(4), they shall not exceed the thresholds defined in the delegated act referred to in paragraph 6 of this Article. Whereas management costs shall comprise direct or indirect cost items reimbursed against evidence of expenditure, management fees shall refer to an agreed price for services rendered established via a competitive market process, where applicable. Management costs and fees shall be based on a performance based calculation methodology.; ‘deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 17

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 43a

17. The following Article 43a is inserted: ‘Article 43a Differentiated treatment of investors 1. Support from the ESI Funds to financial instruments invested in final recipients and gains and other earnings or yields, such as interest, guarantee fees, dividends, capital gains or any other income generated by those investments, which are attributable to the support from the ESI Funds, may be used for differentiated treatment of private investors, as well as the EIB when using the EU guarantee pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/1017. Such differentiated treatment shall be justified by the need to attract private counterpart resources. 2. The need and the level of differentiated treatment as referred to in paragraph 1 shall be established in the ex-ante assessment. 3. The differentiated treatment shall not exceed what is necessary to create the incentives for attracting private counterpart resources. It shall not over- compensate private investors and the EIB when using the EU guarantee according to Regulation (EU) 2015/1017. The alignment of interest shall be ensured through an appropriate sharing of risk and profit. 4. Differentiated treatment of private investors shall be without prejudice to the Union State aid rules. ‘deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 40 – point d

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Article 106 – subparagraph 1 – points 6 and 7

~~(d) points 6 and 7 are~~ deleted.

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI

Isabella ADINOLFI, Marco ZULLO

Proposal for a regulation
Article 265 – paragraph 1 – point 61

Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013
Annex IV

61. Annex IV is amended as follows: (a) The introductory sentence of section 1 is replaced by the following: ‘Where a financial instrument is implemented under Article 39a and points (a) and (b) of Article 38(4), the funding agreement shall include the terms and conditions for making contributions from the programme to the financial instrument and shall include at least the following elements:; ‘ (b) Point (i) of section 1 is replaced by the following: ‘provisions regarding the re-utilisation of resources attributable to the support from the ESI Funds until the end of the eligibility period in compliance with Article 44 and, where applicable, provisions regarding differentiated treatment as referred to in Article 43a; ‘ (c) point (c) of section 2 is replaced by the following: ‘ (c) the use and re-use of resources attributable to the support of the ESI Funds in accordance with Articles 43, 44 and 45, and, where applicable, provisions regarding differentiated treatment as referred to in Article 43a.; ‘deleted

2017/03/13
Committee: REGI