Competition: state aid. 9th report

The European Parliament adopted the resolution drafted by Bernhard RAPKAY (PES, D) and welcomed the decline in State aid. It called on the Member States to live up to the commitment they made at the Stockholm European Council to reduce state aid as a proportion of GNP and reallocate aid to horizontal objectives. It warned against returning regional policy to national control, since that would be at the expense of economically weaker states. Parliament welcomed the Commission's intention to merge the annual aid survey and aid scoreboard as of next year, thereby making a comprehensive reference document available on the situation, development and trends in state aid in the European Union. The state-aid scoreboard will play an especially constructive part as a forum for the exchange of information between Member States. Parliament remarked that in any Commission investigation of national company tax arrangements, the tax sovereignty of Member States must not be called into question. �