Activites

• 2004/12/31 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Regulation 2004/2273
  • OJ L 396 31.12.2004, p. 0028-0029
• #2633
• 2004/12/21 Council Meeting
• 2004/12/21 End of procedure in Parliament
• 2004/12/21 Act adopted by Council after consultation of Parliament
• 2004/03/31 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0229/2004 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution on establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions in relation to enlargement. The report, by Esko Olavi SEPP�NEN (EUL/NGL, FIN), was subject to a number of technical and drafting amendments. These are as follows: - loans from the Euratom Guarantee Fund to third countries will in future be granted only in accordance with Decision 94/179 Euratom which means that funds cannot be lent to a third country to finance new nuclear power stations but only for measures to increase the level of safety at existing nuclear power installations; - Council Decision 94/179/Euratom of 21 March 1994 amending Decision 77/270/Euratom, to authorise the Commission to contract Euratom borrowings in order to contribute to the financing required for improving the degree of safety and efficiency of nuclear power stations in certain non-member countries; - the fact that EIB loans to the accession countries will no longer be covered by the Guarantee Fund will create an additional margin for lending to other countries and/or regions under Decision 2000/24/EC; - Council Decision 2000/24/EC of 22 December 1999 granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects outside the Community (Central and Eastern Europe, Mediterranean countries, Latin America and Asia and the Republic of South Africa) ; - the additional margin, created as a result of accession, under the EIB lending mandate totals EUR 2 180 million. The Commission has brought forward a separate proposal for a Decision concerning the possible use of that amount; - the amount paid into the Guarantee Fund, which corresponds to the loans no longer covered by it, totals approximately EUR 343 million and will flow back to the budget as revenue; - a date change has been proposed : "31 March" shall be replaced by "31 May".�

• 2004/03/17 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0199/2004
• 2003/11/05 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2003/10/13 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(2003)0604 summary

    PURPOSE : Comprehensive report on the functioning of the Guarantee fund and proposal to amend Regulation 2728/94/EC establishing a Guarantee fund for external action. PROPOSED ACT : Council Regulation. CONTENT : Regulation 1149/1999/EC stipulates that a comprehensive report on the functioning of the Guarantee Fund (the "Fund") has to be prepared. The present report accordingly covers the period 1998-2002. The Fund covers guaranteed loans and loan guarantees to third countries. The approaching accession of 10 countries to the EU in 2004 will affect the Fund as several of these countries have benefited from EIB loans guaranteed by the EU Budget. Guaranteed loans to these countries will no longer be covered by the target amount of the Fund as soon as they join the EU. The guarantees themselves will remain in place but the outstanding risk will be borne by the EU budget directly. The same situation will arise in the case of further accessions. The Commission encloses a proposal for an amendment to the Regulation to establish rules for addressing all such situations. It is stressed that this does not mean a withdrawal of the guarantee from these loans, rather that a call on such a guarantee would have an impact on the EU budget directly. The report analyses: - the functioning of the Fund. This covers the description and analysis of the key characteristics of the Fund such as liabilities, defaults covered by the Fund, and its financing. - the impact of enlargement. The report examines the coverage of risk on the outstanding debt guaranteed by the EC for these countries and the nature of the liabilities to be assumed by the EU budget upon accession. - the assessment of the parameters of the Fund, in the light of the experience gained so far with the functioning of the Fund and the forecast volume of additional lending to be covered by EU guarantee up to end-2006. - technical improvements in the functioning of the Fund. The report states that the Fund has continued to fulfil its main objectives period in providing a liquidity cushion for the Community budget against defaults on guaranteed loans and as a mechanism to fix a financial framework for Community guarantees covering Commission and EIB external lending. The volume of defaults has been low. On the basis of current forecasts for guaranteed loan operations and the proposed revision to the general lending mandate for the EIB set out in the Commission's midterm review, no immediate requirement to change the parameters of the Fund has been identified. The Commission does, however, envisages the introduction of some technical improvements to the Fund's provisioning procedures in order to further facilitate the functioning of the Fund. These improvements will not require any change to the Regulation. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS : This is a one-time event due to the accession of third countries to the Communities. The amount of EUR 343 Million to be reversed to the Community budget after the accession in 2004 is calculated as follows: Estimated outstanding amount at accession date: target rate = EUR 3,808 Million. 9% = 343 Million. This amount is calculated according to the mechanism of the Guarantee Fund which stipulates that the amount held in the Fund shall correspond to the target amount (currently 9% of outstanding liabilities). As a result,the deprovisioning amount shall be based only on this parameter, independently of how it has been provisioned.�

  • DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/economy_finance/index_en.htm', 'title': 'Economic and Financial Affairs'}],

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(2003)0604
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A5-0199/2004
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0229/2004
• : Regulation 2004/2273
• : OJ L 396 31.12.2004, p. 0028-0029

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)