Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-06-Speech-4-042"
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"en.20100506.3.4-042"2
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Mr President, I would like to thank all the speakers for their comments. Of course, some of the issues raised deserve to be discussed in more detail. I can only give a few answers here, and I will distinguish between questions that concern our operational priorities, on the one hand, and those that are more about supervision and governance, on the other.
Mr Lamberts quoted figures for the period 2002-2008, but if you look at the most recent figures, in particular those of 2009, you will see that the proportion is in the process of being reversed, since in 2009 we funded renewable energy projects worth more than EUR 4 billion, which represents more than 70% of our funding for electricity generation.
The intention, then, is to pursue this reversal of the proportion by providing more funding for renewable energies and energy efficiency, and here I would like to thank Mr Stavrakakis, who alluded in his speech to the ELENA programme, which once again is a joint programme with the Commission to provide technical assistance in the area of energy efficiency.
Still on energy, I would like to say to Mrs Benarab-Attou that we respect the choice of each Member State as far as policy mix is concerned. If a Member State decides to use nuclear energy, it is not for the EIB to oppose this, but I confirm that, in the case of Jordan, we are only discussing the funding of renewable energies.
I shall be brief now, and address a few issues regarding supervision and governance. As far as supervision is concerned, Mr Audy has gone over this, he knows our position; we are completely open, we are already supervised to a large extent by an independent audit committee, by the European Court of Auditors, when we use the European budget, by OLAF and by the European Ombudsman. I think we are already the most supervised international financial institution.
That said, I acknowledge that having banking supervision could be useful, and we are therefore completely open to proposals that could be made on the subject, in particular via the new European Banking Authority.
As far as Basel III is concerned, I would simply say to Mr Rübig that we are following the work closely. It is too early to give an opinion on the impact that that could have, since we are only at the stage of consultation on Basel III and the parameters have not yet been decided.
As for offshore financial centres, I would say to Mr Geier that it is something that we are very interested in. If he wishes, we could explain our new policy in more detail, but, really, the main concern is to prevent tax avoidance when offshore financial centres are used.
Finally, a specific point raised by Mr Schmidt. He is right, we still have some progress to make in terms of gender equality. The figure that he quoted concerns only managerial staff. It is true that we have too few women in the EIB’s managerial staff. We have implemented an action plan and we hope to rectify this situation in the next few years, but I want to assure him of our will in this regard; we want to improve a situation which, as it stands today, is in fact unacceptable.
As far as our operational priorities are concerned, one has held the attention of a number of you, and it is the support that should be provided to small and medium-sized enterprises. Mrs Győri and Mr Schmidt, in particular, underlined this. I think that they are quite right to stress the importance of support for SMEs.
As you doubtless know, in 2008, we launched a new product for loans to banks for small and medium-sized enterprises, which allows us to monitor the use of the funds that we lend more effectively. Thus I can tell you that, from the last quarter of 2008 until the end of 2009, we signed loans worth EUR 21 billion, of which EUR 16 billion have actually been spent. Moreover, at the end of last year, more than 90% of these funds had already actually been lent to small and medium-sized enterprises.
I therefore think that we can provide significant support in this way, going through commercial banks, and using, as Mrs Győri stressed, not just traditional commercial banks as intermediaries, but also regional banks and savings banks. We have diversified the range of our intermediaries.
We are also trying to work in close cooperation with our subsidiary, the European Investment Fund, in combined actions, since this fund is able to provide guarantees for the portfolio of loans granted to SMEs. Mrs Auconie gave a very specific example of this participation, and I am grateful for her words of support in this regard.
The second operational priority that captured your interest is, of course, convergence, and I can confirm that the European Investment Bank is striving to further increase its operations in the so-called convergence regions. Thus you will see that, in 2009, the volume of our loans grew more in the new Member States than in the old ones. This is part of our determined effort to try to help reduce the gap between the Member States, since that is indeed the spirit of convergence.
In this context, as Mrs Kadenbach and Mr Czarnecki, in particular, underlined, it is important to have good cooperation with the Commission regarding the use of the Structural Funds, and I can tell you that this is indeed the case.
Furthermore, together with the Commission we have finalised several joint programmes: JASPERS, to provide technical assistance in the preparation of projects that may be eligible for aid from the Structural Funds; JEREMIE, which is an original idea aimed at transforming the Structural Funds into financial instruments with a revolving character (we can use the same amounts several times); and, finally, JESSICA, which is the same idea of using the Structural Funds for funding in the area of urban renewal.
The third operational priority is energy and the fight against climate change. We will perhaps have the opportunity to discuss this in more detail, but I can assure you that the idea is to put more emphasis on renewable energies and energy efficiency, in accordance with the strategy adopted at European level."@en1
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