Brussels, 05/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - The new EU Scoreboard on state aid published by the European Commission indicates that the overall level of state aid continues to fall. In a representative five year period from 1997 to 2001 state aid fell from EUR 102 billion to EUR 86 billion, but aid slightly increased from EUR 85.2 billion in 2000 to EUR 86 billion in 2001. Aid fell significantly for manufacturing, the coal industry and services, but aid for rail rose sharply in 2001. The two Member States that have contributed most to this fall are Germany - which reduced aid by EUR 6 billion - and Italy - which reduced aid by EUR 4 billion. Germany is one of the Member States that granted the most aid in 2001 (EUR 23 billion), followed by France (EUR 16 billion) and Italy (EUR 12 billion). The UK increased aid by EUR 4.3 billion between 2000 and 2001 and is now in fourth place with EUR 10.6 bn, the rise largely due to aid for transport. In relative terms, aid amounted to 0.99% of EU Gross Domestic Product in 2001. The average hides huge disparities between Member States ranging from 0.66% of GDP in the UK to 1.58% in Finland, which can be explained by the relatively large amount of aid to agriculture (65% of total aid in Finland).
The Commission welcomed the general trend, which fits with the commitment made at the Stockholm European Council of March 2001 to better target aid on the environment, training, research and development, job creation and SMEs. Launched by Commissioner Monti in July 2001, the state aid scoreboard aims to track changes in European state aid policy in order to make it more transparent. The next scoreboard will be published in the autumn.