Small and medium enterprises SMEs: interest subsidies on loans extended by the EIB

Parliament adopted the report by Mrs Winifred EWING (ARE, UK) on the second report from the Commission on the provision of Community interest subsidies on loans for small and medium-sized enterprises extended by the European Investment Bank under its temporary lending facility. The report notes that the facility has been a remarkable success with 95% of the total amount available allocated as of 31 July 1995, but also highlights various weaknesses, including the need to provide a much narrower definition of an SME or to restrict the number of intermediaries and monitor the activities more effectively. The SME Facility should also be restricted to enterprises with fewer than 100 or even 50 employees. Since the initial allocation was now largely used up, the report calls on the Commission to produce proposals for an extension of the scheme or to set up an alternative scheme with the same aim, namely the creation of jobs. The facility should be accessible throughout the Union. More generally, the report calls for the EIB to be made more transparent by the setting up of a joint committee between the European Parliament and the EIB whose task, inter alia, would be to scrutinize the EIB SME Facility. The Commission and the EIB were also requested to investigate in what areas jobs had been created and whether those jobs are structural in nature. �