Brussels, 05/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 3 July 2009, the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of member states to the EU (COREPER) approved the first reading agreement on the new European micro-finance instrument for employment and inclusion (micro-finance facility “Progress”). Thus it endorsed the agreement reached the previous day by MEPs of the European Parliament's employment and social affairs committee, the European Commission and the Council.
On 2 July 2009, the European Commission adopted a draft decision seeking to facilitate very small companies' access to micro-credit. The text also included those who, having lost their jobs, want to start their own businesses. This new financial facility will have an initial budget of €100 million, which could rise to €500 million with the involvement of international financial institutions, in particular the European Investment Bank (see EUROPE 9932). In the European Union, micro-credit means requests for loans of up to €25,000. It is aimed at micro-companies which employ fewer than 10 people and have an annual turnover of less than €2 million, but which have difficulty in obtaining loans on conventional credit markets, says an EP press release.
On funding, which remained a stumbling block to reaching agreement, the Council and the EP followed the Commission recommendation in that they agreed that the new instrument should have funding of €100 million. This sum will come from the redistribution of €60 million from the money for the Progress programme and €40 million worth of new money (that is to say, money not yet paid by member states into the EU budget). For 2010, the Parliament and Council agreed to release €25 million from the EU's 2010 budget. In a unilateral statement, the Commission promises to leave sufficient slack in its draft budgets for the coming years to allow the Council and EP to increase the overall funding for the new instrument by €20 million, in line with point 37 of the inter-institutional agreement of 26 May 2006 on budgetary discipline and good financial management. The new instrument will, for the moment at least, have a 4-year lifespan.
The Parliament will vote on the agreement in the plenary session in Strasbourg next week, and the Employment, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Affairs Council is expected to adopt it without debate at its next meeting in Brussels on 8 March. (G.B./transl.rt)