Acta literal de los debates

Jueves 18 de mayo de 2017 - Estrasburgo

12.2. Una combinación adecuada de financiación para las regiones de Europa: equilibrar los instrumentos financieros y las subvenciones en la política de cohesión de la Unión (A8-0139/2017 - Andrey Novakov)

Mündliche Erklärungen zur Abstimmung

  Andrejs Mamikins (S&D). – Madam President, EU cohesion policy mainly consist of a mix of grants and financial instruments. Some Latvian officials support the replacement of grants with loans in the future. The arguments are that it is more difficult to receive grants than loans, because you have to persuade the bank to give you the loan to realise the project for this money, check the proper realisation of the project and only after that do you receive the grant.

This algorithm makes it difficult for businesses. Sometimes projects do not, at the beginning, have a profitable future but receiving the grant is a final aim of the project. On the other side, grants have a lot of positive features, each of these instruments have their strengths and weaknesses, both grants and financial instruments have their specific roles in cohesion policy. Financial instruments perform better in well-developed regions and metropolitan areas while grants address regional structural issues in outermost regions and regions with a high unemployment rate. I voted in favour.