Brussels, 16/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - According to the score board published on Tuesday by the Commission, the ten new Member States of the EU grant much more State aid to their businesses than the fifteen "old" Member States. On average, public aid in the new Member States represented 1.42% of GDP for the period 2000-2003, considerably higher than the 0.4% average for the EU15 in 2002. Malta (3.9% of GDP), Cyprus (2.9%) and the Czech Republic (2.8%) are the three most generous of the new Member States, and the three Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia), with around 0.2%, are below the average of the EU15. "The 25 countries must continue their efforts to reduce their levels of aid, and instead encourage competitiveness in Europe- whilst supporting research and development, the environment, cohesion and other cross-cutting political objectives- rather than supporting individual businesses", noted the Commissioner for Competition, Mario Monti. We will return to the details of the report.