On Wednesday 22 April, the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU will ask the permanent representatives of the Member States to take stock of progress on the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), with the Presidency aiming to reach a partial political agreement (‘general approach’) at a Competitiveness Council at the end of May.
The Presidency is entering “the last mile before submitting to the Council a Partial General Approach on the ECF. Some sensitive outstanding issues have emerged”, it said in a note dated 17 April.
Among other things, the Presidency is calling on the Member States to give their political direction on one of the most sensitive issues in the ECF negotiations: “ensuring high quality projects while taking into account the different circumstances across the EU”, it explains in a note dated 17 April.
“Based on the discussions in the Ad hoc Working Party and its ECF subgroup, the Presidency acknowledges that ensuring high-quality projects and high impact project selection is a common pursuit among Member States. At the same time, different circumstances across the Union should be considered, in order to harness the expertise across the EU”.
The Presidency sets out a series of elements “for consideration in order to ensure high quality projects while taking into account the different circumstances across the EU”.
It cites, for example, an “enhanced role of the National Contact Points (NCPs), to provide essential advisory and matchmaking support to help entities across the Union access ECF calls effectively”. In this respect, “it could be considered to further clarify that capacity building measures provided by the NCPs network will be eligible for funding under both the horizontal activities and the policy windows”; strengthening the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), while SMEs are present in all Member States, and facilitating their access and participation could enable pan-European coverage of the ECF.
“The level of SME integration, or of integration of complementary scientific, technological or industrial competences not yet present in selected projects, could also be considered for a potential tiebreaker framework to be included in the work programme rules”.
Such a criterion would not affect the ranking of proposals assessed on the basis of their quality and impact, and would only apply in the event of equal scores between proposals.
The text also mentions a “fine-tuned role of the Single Market Value Chains Builder to provide for dedicated calls targeting the uptake by SMEs or to include SME-related elements in value chain consortia”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)