Strasbourg, 05/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament (EP) wants greater transparency and sustainability for export credit agencies. The adoption on Tuesday 5 April of the proposed first reading amendments in the report by Yannick Jadot (Greens, France) on the proposal for a revision of EU rules governing these agencies strengthens its position in the coming trialogue negotiations with the Commission and Council.
MEPs backed the rapporteur's proposals to beef up transparency and disclosure requirements on the various projects supported by the export credit agencies, calling on each member state to provide an annual activity report for the Commission and the Parliament. This report should contain: - a clear statement of arrangements for costing environmental risk in calculating risk premiums; - consistency with EU external policy objectives, as set out by the Lisbon Treaty, including on human, social, environmental and development rights; - and an overview of the financial state of their balance sheets.
Parliament calls, too, for every effort to be made to encourage export credit agencies from non-European and non-OECD countries to adopt the same transparency and sustainability criteria. MEPs support the gradual phasing out of subsidies for fossil energy, in line with European and national commitments on climate change.
Export credit agencies, such as Coface in France, provide financial guarantees, through a bank, to exporting companies when these companies win a market in a high-risk third country. An informal international agreement, known as the “Arrangement”, negotiated by the OECD, seeks to guarantee that export credits are not used simply as an alternative way of subsidising some exporting industries, a practice outlawed by WTO rules. The text currently under discussion in the Council and EP is a proposal for a decision drafted by the Commission which seeks to incorporate the guidelines of the OECD agreement, revised in 2005, into Community law. (E.H./transl.rt)