Activities of Lambert van NISTELROOIJ related to 2016/2302(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
The right funding mix for Europe’s regions: balancing financial instruments and grants in EU cohesion policy - Future perspectives for technical assistance in cohesion policy (debate) NL
Amendments (11)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 21 a (new)
Citation 21 a (new)
- having regard to the Commission's summary report of December 2015 entitled 'Summary of data on the progress made in financing and implementing financial engineering instruments for the programming period 2014-2020 in accordance with Article 46 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council,
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the Omnibus proposal represents the only opportunity for a range of mid-term improvements of the system that govern the current programming period;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Welcomes the fact that crucial regulatory changes in programming, implementation and management of financial instruments, such as direct links to and coverage of all 11 thematic objectives, compulsory ex-ante assessment, and creation of tailor-made and off-the- shelf solutions and reporting mechanisms, contribute to the implementation of financial instrumentspositive impact of financial instruments; calls, however, for efforts in ensuring that the changes in question do not affect financial instruments' attractiveness and implementation speed;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Recognises that grants have some strengths as compared to financial instruments: supporting projects that do not necessarily generate revenue, providing funding to projects that for various reasons cannot attract private or public funding, targeting specific beneficiaries, issues and regional priorities, and lower complexity of use owing to existing experience and capacity; acknowledges that in some cases grants are bound to limitations: difficulties in achieving project quality and sustainability, risk of substituting public funding in the long-run and a crowding-out effect for potential private investment even when projects may have a revolving nature and a capacity to generate revenues to repay loan-based financing;
Amendment 63 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recognises that financial instruments offer advantages such as leverage and revolving effects as well as higher risk investments, including private capital, attraction of private capital as well as coverage of specific investment gaps through high- quality bankable projects; acknowledges that financial instruments come with certain disadvantages: slower implementation in some regions, higher complexity, and high management fees and implementation costin some cases higher implementation costs, including management fees; notes that grants represent preferable investments in some policy areas, such as the ones covered by the ESFcertain types of public infrastructure, social services or, in general, projects that do not generate revenue;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recognizes the importance of using financial instruments in Cohesion Policy operations; welcomes the fact that reporting on the implementation of financial instruments in 2015 reveals progress, despite the late start of the current programming period; notes, however, that implementation progress of ESI Funds financial instruments is very divergent between and within the EU Member States; recalls that the positive experience and impact of using financial instruments in the 2007- 2013 programming period was accompanied by a number of performance issues: late start of operations, inaccurate market assessment, diverging regional uptake, overall low disbursement rates, low leverage effect, problematic revolving, high management costs and fees and inadequately large endowments; recalls that by 2015 a number of the observed shortcomings were mitigated through targeted measures;
Amendment 105 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Notes that ESI Funds implementation delays willmay affect disbursement rates, revolving and leverage; recalls the fact that delays in the 2007-2013 period contributed irreversibly to sub- optimal performance of ERDF and ESF financial instruments; emphasises that implementation delays due to the late start of the programming period may harm the performance of ESI Funds financial instruments, which could lead to inaccurate evaluation conclusions at the end of the period; calls, therefore, for all necessary steps should be taken by the Member States to mitigate the negative effects of delayed implementation, especially regarding the risk of limited use and impact of financial instruments;
Amendment 122 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Welcomes the Commission’s actions in optimising regulation; emphasises that, despite the improvements, complexity still exists and issues such as the long set-up time and the administrative burden for recipients are disincentives to use financial instruments; calls on the Commission to work closely with the EIB and, the EIF and managing authorities to make access to ESI Funds microcredit, loans, guarantees, equity and venture capital as easy as using grantssignificantly easier;
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Notes that specific provisions limit flexibility in operations with financial instruments; points out that state aid rules appear to be particularly burdensome, especially when combining grants with financial instruments; calls on the Commission to explore further options to simplify state aid compliance on all three levels - managing authorities, fund of funds and financial intermediaries; calls for a level playing field in state aid rules concerning all financial instruments in order to avoid preferential treatment of certain sources of funding as compared to others, especially in the field of SME support;
Amendment 129 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Highlights the importance of auditing financial instruments, including an audit of the EIB Group’s operations on Cohesion Policy; callsnotes that audit activities have access to the entire ESI Funds cycle; calls on the Commission and national authorities to identify simplification and synergy opportunities through the audit process; calls, therefore, on the Commission to focus on further capacity building, audit methodology and guidance;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Points out that combining grants and financial instruments has unexplored potential; emphasises that alongside guidance to authorities, further harmonisation is needed for the rules that concern combining different ESI Funds, as well as for the rules that concern combining the ESI Funds with instruments such as Horizon 2020 and EFSI; calls for easing the regulatory burden by facilitating the above-mentioned combining of allocations from more than one programme to the same financial instrument, as well as enabling combinations of microfinance instruments in ESF operations; calls for further promotion of combining grants with financial instruments; stresses that grant components can be used acombination of ESI Funds grants and first loss piece and can thereforenancial instruments with other funding sources can make the funding structure more attractive to beneficiaries and private sector investors due to improved risk sharing;