REPORT on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 382/2001 as regards its expiry date and certain provisions related to the execution of the Budget

25.5.2005 - (COM(2004)0840 – C6‑0044/2005 – 2004/0288(CNS)) - *

Committee on International Trade
Rapporteur: David Martin

DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION

on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 382/2001 as regards its expiry date and certain provisions related to the execution of the Budget

(COM(2004)0840 – C6‑0044/2005 – 2004/0288(CNS))

(Consultation procedure)

The European Parliament,

–   having regard to the Commission proposal to the Council (COM(2004)0840)[1],

–   having regard to Articles 133 and 181a of the EC Treaty, pursuant to which the Council consulted Parliament (C6‑0044/2005),

–   having regard to Rule 51 of its Rules of Procedure,

–   having regard to the report of the Committee on International Trade and the opinions of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Culture and Education (A6‑0154/2005),

1.  Approves the Commission proposal as amended;

2.  Calls on the Commission to alter its proposal accordingly, pursuant to Article 250(2) of the EC Treaty;

3.  Calls on the Council to notify Parliament if it intends to depart from the text approved by Parliament;

4.  Calls for initiation of the conciliation procedure under the Joint Declaration of 4 March 1975 if the Council intends to depart from the text approved by Parliament;

5.  Asks the Council to consult Parliament again if it intends to amend the Commission proposal substantially;

6.  Instructs its President to forward its position to the Council and Commission.

Text proposed by the Commission	Amendments by Parliament
Amendment 1 ARTICLE 1, POINT -1 (new) Recital 9 a (new) (Regulation (EC) No 382/2001)
	-1. After recital 9, the following recital is inserted: "(9a) The Gateway to Japan Programme and the Executive Training Programme have been so successful that similar programmes should be envisaged in the future with other countries, e.g. China."
Justification
China is not a possible partner under this regulation that covers only industrialised countries. But economic relations with China are important and a programme that facilitates contacts would be beneficial. Other possible countries could be Thailand or India.
Amendment 2 ARTICLE 1, POINT -1 A (new) Article 4, point (h a) (new) (Regulation (EC) 382/2001)
	-1a. In Article 4, the following point is added after point (h):
	"(ha) coordination between the activities within each partner country and between different partner countries."
Justification
The EU Centres need a common website to exchange information and to inform about their activities. This website could be used not only by the Centres in the USA, but by all Centres outside the EU. Furthermore, the Centres within the US should coordinate their cooperation among themselves and not through the European Commission. Funding for these activities should be foreseen.

• [1]  OJ C ... / Not yet published in OJ.

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

The regulation concerns co-operation and commercial relations with the following industrialised countries: United States, Canada, Japan, Korea (Republic of Korea), Australia and New Zealand. Initially, it had been drafted to provide the legal base for several programmes or actions that the Community wanted to fund but where the legal base was missing. The regulation is colloquially known as "omnibus regulation" as it covers a range of different and unrelated programmes - for all of which the legal base was missing before its existence.

It covers two main areas:

A) Co-operation - all concerned countries

– education and information of the public;

– strengthening people-to-people links;

– dialogue between political, economical and social partners;

– research and studies;

– projects in science and technology;

– customs co-operation;

– enhancing the visibility of the EU;

– pilot schemes.

These aims are achieved mainly by co-funding EU Centres. They support research activities, support fellowship programmes, e.g. for faculty and graduate students, organise academic conferences on EU topics, etc.

B) Commercial Relations - Japan and, to a lesser extent, Korea

– Japan: targeted programs that bring added value to efforts by the Member States;

– Japan: participation of groups of business executives from SMEs to actions in Japan (Gateway to Japan);

– Japan: conferences and seminars, high-level business missions, etc.;

– Japan and Korea: Executive Training Programmes (ETP) - to enable European executives to communicate and operate in the Japanese and Korean business environment. Groups of young executives are taught the language (for 9 months in Japan, a shorter period in Korea) and then do an internship in a company.

What has been funded?

23 EU Centres have been opened, 15 in the US, 5 in Canada, one each in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. These centres vary in size and activities. In the US, they are hosted by major universities. Some are housed within International departments, some are hosted jointly by several departments, some are independent. The majority have some sort of advisory board. In Canada, the Centres are hosted within European focused international departments. In Australia and New Zealand, they are not hosed within one department.

The US Centres have usually more than one goal. Only one (Harvard, USA) sees teaching as its main objective. Most see outreach as main target. It is interesting that none of the 17 US centres sees networking with the others as a goal. The Canadian Centres are similar to those in the US, whereas those in Australia and N.Z. focus on academic objectives.

ETP has been running since 1979. Since then, more than 850 European executives have participated.

A Korean version of ETP was launched in 2002.

Some 1500 SMEs have participated in the Gateway to Japan Programme.

Budget

The budgetary means were between MEUR 15.2 and 16.8 per annum, around 50% of which goes to ETP, 22% to Gateway to Japan and 17% to the EU centres.

The original regulation expires on 31 December 2005. According to the planning of the Commission, the expenditures covered by it should fall under the new financial instruments for Community External Assistance from 2007 on. This amending legislation has been drafted to cover the gap between 31 December 2005 and 1 January 2007.

Future legislative coverage

The Commission has proposed that there will be four financial instruments. For one, the instrument for development co-operation, the Committee on International Trade has recommended to the lead committee, the Committee on Development, that the proposal be rejected. The Committee on Development has subsequently adopted a recommendation to reject the proposal. The plenary will have to consider this recommendation in the next weeks. If the proposal fails to secure a majority of the votes in plenary, the EP President will ask the Commission to withdraw the proposal. If the Commission fails to do so, the President will refer the matter back to the committee responsible. There will be no adoption in first reading and thus a blockage of the legislative draft. As the four instruments have been drafted as a package, the rejection would have an impact on the other instruments.

Commission’s proposed changes

1.  Extension of the period of validity - until 2007, i.e. until the new Financial Perspective becomes applicable. Budgetary consequences: MEUR 17 in commitments and payments.

2.  Compliance with the new Financial regulation - participants under the ETP program receive individual grants or scholarships. This needs to be covered in a different way since the new FR came into force.

3.  the legal base changes, Art. 181a is added - economic, financial and technical cooperation with third countries.

Comments

The rapporteur agrees that the prolongation is only necessary to bridge the gap between the end of 2005 and the beginning of the period covered by the new financial perspective and the new financial instruments in the EC's foreign policy. As soon as the new instruments will be in place, this regulation will be repealed.

The evaluations for the EU centres, ETP and the Gateway programme are both very positive. The Gateway programme shows that €1 spent on the programme created €37 in additional sales for the companies participating. The evaluation of ETP is slightly less enthusiastic albeit still very positive, thus the programme should be continued. The EU centres also do a very relevant work, the only negative aspect being a lack of coordination between the different centres in the US. Whereas in the first time after their founding, the US Centres had a coordinator and a website, this has been abandoned since and today coordination is done by the European Commission's delegation in Washington. With the loss of the website, the Centres have lost a common, everyday platform for interaction between themselves. Having the Commission is not so positive either. The rapporteur recommends to re-introduce a coordinator.

There is no room in the regulation to include other countries, such as India or China in the programmes, as they are emerging economies and not industrialised countries. However, the rapporteur would support the extension of different parts of this programme to other countries. The model character of both the ETP and the Gateway programme could be promoted for other bilateral relations, e.g. for China, Thailand, or India.

PROCEDURE

Title	Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 382/2001 as regards its expiry date and certain provisions related to the execution of the Budget
References	(COM(2004)0840 – C6-0044/2005 – 2004/0288(CNS))
Legal basis	Articles 133 and 181 EC
Basis in Rules of Procedure	Rule 51
Date of consulting Parliament	21.2.2005
Committee responsible   Date announced in plenary	INTA 24.2.2005
Committee(s) asked for opinion(s)   Date announced in plenary	CULT	BUDG			AFET
Not delivering opinion(s)   Date of decision	CULT 17.01.2005	BUDG 20.4.2005			AFET 18.1.2005
Enhanced cooperation   Date announced in plenary
Rapporteur(s)   Date appointed	David Martin 3.2.2005
Previous rapporteur(s)
Simplified procedure   Date of decision
Legal basis disputed   Date of JURI opinion
Financial endowment amended   Date of BUDG opinion
European Economic and Social Committee consulted   Date of decision in plenary
Committee of the Regions consulted   Date of decision in plenary
Discussed in committee		18.4.2005
Date adopted	23.5.2005
Result of final vote	for: against: abstentions:		18 0 0
Members present for the final vote	Daniel Caspary, Christofer Fjellner, Georgios Papastamkos, Tokia Saïfi, Zbigniew Zaleski, Françoise Castex, Erika Mann, Javier Moreno Sánchez, Sajjad Karim, Johan Van Hecke, Caroline Lucas, Jacky Henin, Helmuth Markov
Substitutes present for the final vote	Maria Martens, Zuzana Roithová, Panagiotis Beglitis, Elisa Ferreira, Danutė Budreikaitė
Substitutes under Rule 178(2) present for the final vote
Date tabled – A6	25.5.2005			A6-0154/2005
Comments