Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2005)121 - Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007-2013) - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2005)121 - Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007-2013). |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2005)121  |
| date | 06-04-2005 |
The Lisbon European Council of March 2000 set the objective of making Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. It emphasized the importance of creating a climate favourable to SMEs, and considered it important to disseminate best practice and ensure greater convergence between Member States. The Gothenburg European Council of June 2001 defined the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development to ensure that economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection go hand in hand. Enterprises’ production patterns play an important role in sustainable development.
In its Communication on a renewed Lisbon strategy of February 2005, the Commission proposes to focus efforts on “delivering stronger and lasting growth and creating more and better jobs”[1]. This calls for actions to deliver growth and competitiveness and to make Europe a more attractive place to invest and work. It emphasizes the need to stimulate entrepreneurial initiative, attract sufficient risk capital to start up businesses, and sustain a strong European industrial base whilst facilitating innovation and notably eco-innovation, more and better investment in education and training, the uptake of ICT and the sustainable use of resources.
The Lisbon process has placed competitiveness firmly at the centre of political attention. In recent years concern to achieve greater coherence and synergy in the Community programmes and instruments that are relevant to meeting the Lisbon goals has grown. The 2003 Spring Council called for “an integrated strategy for competitiveness to be developed by the Commission, reviewing on a regular basis both horizontal and sectoral issues”[2]. In its response i, the Commission presented a preliminary analysis of relevant fields of activity, but expressed its intension to put forward proposals in the framework of the preparatory work for the next budgetary period, which define the political project for the enlarged Union from 2007-2013. The Commission therefore suggested in July 2004, in the context of its proposals for the next budgetary period, a framework programme for competitiveness and innovation i.
The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) will bring together into a common framework specific Community support programmes and relevant parts of other Community programmes in fields critical to boosting European productivity, innovation capacity and sustainable growth, whilst simultaneously addressing complementary environmental concerns. This concerns the following Community measures presently in place: Council Decision 96/413/EC i on measures to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry; Council Decision 2000/819/EC i on a multiannual programme (MAP) for enterprise and entrepreneurship, and in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); Regulation (EC) No 1655/2000 i of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE); Decision No 2256/2003/EC of the Parliament and of the Council on a multiannual programme for the monitoring of the e Europe 2005 action plan, dissemination of good practices and the improvement of network and information security; Council Decision 2001/48/EC on a multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the information society; Council Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 on general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks, Decision No 1336/97/EC i of the European Parliament and of the Council on a series of guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks; and Decision No 1230/2003/EC i of the European Parliament and of the Council on a multiannual programme for action in the field of energy: ‘Intelligent Energy – Europe’ to support energy efficiency and new and renewable energy sources in all sectors including transport.
The CIP will provide a significant and coherent legal basis for Community actions which share the overarching objectives of enhancing competitiveness and innovation, complementing the research-oriented activities promoted by the Community Framework Programme on Research and Technological Development and Demonstration. As such it will be more visible and comprehensible for the public. However, the objectives and target groups of the CIP are diverse and the structure of the CIP therefore recognises the need to maintain the visibility of its individual components. The CIP will therefore be composed of specific sub-programmes: the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, the ICT Policy Support Programme, and the Intelligent Energy- Europe Programme.
The CIP will be open for participation to the members of the EEA, candidate countries and countries of the Western Balkans. Other third countries, in particular neighbouring countries or countries interested in co-operating with the Community in relation to innovation activities can participate in the framework programme if bilateral agreements with them provide for this.
The 2004 Spring European Council emphasized that “competitiveness, innovation, and the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture are defining conditions for growth – essential to the economy as a whole – and especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises”[10]. It also stressed that “Growth, to be sustainable, must be environmentally sound. Growth should be decoupled from negative environmental impacts. Clean technologies are vital in order to fully exploit synergies between enterprise and the environment”[11].
The Treaty provides the basis for the Community and the Member States to ensure that the conditions necessary for the competitiveness of the Community's enterprises exist i. Such activities include facilitating adjustment to structural changes, encouraging a favourable environment for entrepreneurship and SMEs, encouraging an environment favourable to enterprise cooperation, and fostering better exploitation of the innovative potential of enterprises.
The Community supports at present enterprise and entrepreneurship policy development, and business support services and Community financial instruments for SMEs under the MAP. In addition the Commission carries out analysis and actions to define and promote competitiveness strategies for European industry and service sectors, including sectoral determinants of industrial competitiveness. The sixth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration supports a range of actions that are necessary to strengthen Europe’s technological capability and improve its innovation performance i. The LIFE Programme provides support to innovative techniques and methods in the environment field. A major part of this support is granted to SMEs, for the demonstration of a variety of clean technologies in key areas such as water quality and waste recycling.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will bring together activities on entrepreneurship, SMEs, industrial competitiveness and innovation. It will specifically target small and medium sized enterprises i, from hi-tech “gazelles” to the traditional micro- and family firms which make up the large majority of enterprises in Europe. It will cover industrial and services sectors. It will also encourage entrepreneurship and potential entrepreneurs both generally and in particular target groups, paying special attention to gender issues. It will contribute to encouraging young people to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and promoting the emergence of young entrepreneurs as promoted by the European Pact for Youth i. It will be an important, but not the only instrument for implementing the key actions in the strategic policy areas set out in the “European Agenda for Entrepreneurship”[16] and for providing Community level support for Member States’ actions in pursuit of the European Charter for Small Enterprises i. Although specifically addressed by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, SME interests will be reflected throughout the entire CIP.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will also be one of the instruments supporting the implementation of the Environmental Technologies Action Plan i, which aims at removing the obstacles so as to tap the full potential of environmental technologies to protect the environment while contributing to competitiveness and economic growth, ensuring that over the coming years the European Union takes a leading role in developing and applying environmental technologies, and mobilising all stakeholders in support of these objectives. The 2004 Spring European Council welcomed the Action Plan and called for its implementation. It invited in particular the Commission and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB) to explore the mobilisation of the range of financial instruments to promote such technologies. The Commission’s communication to the 2005 Spring European Council i further emphasised the need to strongly promote eco-innovation, and stated that the Commission will step up its promotion of environmental technologies.
Innovation is a business process connected with exploiting market opportunities for new products, services and business processes. Indeed, a strong competitive pressure is indispensable to provide powerful incentives for companies to continuously engage in innovation and RTD. This is closely related to the willingness to take risks and test new ideas on the market, and the availability of risk capital is crucial for it. Insufficient innovation is a major cause of Europe’s disappointing growth performance. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will therefore support horizontal activities to improve, encourage and promote innovation (including eco-innovation) in enterprises. This will include fostering sector-specific innovation, clusters, public-private innovation partnerships, and the application of innovation management. It will also contribute to the provision of innovation support services at regional level, in particular for trans-national knowledge and technology transfer and management of intellectual and industrial property.
The Competitiveness Council of 13 May 2003 called on Member States to define policy objectives in the field of innovation, reflecting the specific characteristics of their respective innovation systems. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will support the development of innovation governance and culture through analysis and monitoring of innovation performance, and the development and coordination of innovation policy. The Programme will support mutual learning for excellence in national and regional innovation policy-making, it will encourage cooperation between public and private innovation actors, promote awareness of innovation and disseminate good innovation practices.
Poor access to appropriate forms of finance is frequently quoted as a main barrier to entrepreneurship and enterprise innovation i. This problem may be exacerbated by new accounting standards which will make banks more sensitive to risk and lead to a rating culture. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will address persistent recognised market gaps leading to poor access to equity, venture capital and loans for SMEs, through Community Financial Instruments operated on behalf of the Commission by the European Investment Fund (EIF), the Community’s specialised institution for providing venture capital and guarantee instruments for SMEs. Under the MAP, independent evaluations identified the market-based approach and the implementation via the EIF of these instruments as a best practice i. They will therefore be continued and adapted in the new programme.
The Community Financial Instruments for SMEs will ease the supply of seed and early stage capital for innovative start-ups and young companies. The High Growth and Innovative SME Facility (GIF) will share risk and reward with private equity investors providing important leverage for the supply of equity to innovative companies. The GIF instruments will increase the supply of development equity for innovative SMEs in their early stages and in the expansion phase, leveraging ‘follow-on’ capital to help them bring their products and services to market and continue research and development activities.
The SME Guarantee Facility will continue to provide counter or co-guarantees to guarantee schemes operating in eligible countries, and direct guarantees to financial intermediaries. It will concentrate on addressing market failures: (i) in the access of SMEs with growth potential to loans (or loan substitutes such as leasing); (ii) in the provision of microcredit and (iii) in access to equity or quasi-equity. A (iv) new securitisation window will mobilise additional debt financing for SMEs under appropriate risk-sharing arrangements with the targeted institutions.
A Capacity Building Scheme will support the capacity of financial intermediaries to focus on additional investment and technology aspects. Action will also be undertaken to facilitate SME financing in countries where banking intermediation is significantly lower than the EU average.
European business and innovation support services play an important role in ensuring SMEs’ access to information relating to the functioning and opportunities of the internal market for goods and services as well as in the transnational transfer of innovation, knowledge and technology. These services can play a cross-cutting role particularly in the promotion and dissemination of information on and results of Community programmes and in providing interaction between the Commission and SMEs.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme will also support positive policy development through benchmarking, studies and exchanges of good practice between national and regional authorities and other experts in the enterprise, entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness policy fields. It will work with Member States and other participating countries to improve the regulatory and administrative environment for business. Twinning actions between authorities at national and regional level may be initiated as a means of following-up on recommendations of such policy development activity.
Actions for promoting the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in businesses, administrations and public sector services have mostly been carried out in the context of the e Europe initiative fostering coordination of Member States Actions i. These include Community funding for the e TEN (TEN Telecom) scheme i, which supports the validation and deployment of trans-European ICT-based services. It also comprises the e Content programme i, which aims at fostering the development of innovative European digital content and MODINIS, which provides direct support to benchmarking activities, studies, forums and promotion and awareness actions that help implement e Europe.
The uptake of ICTs by both the private and public sector is a key element in improving innovation performance and competitiveness. ICTs provide the backbone for the knowledge economy. They are also a catalyst for organisational change and innovation. In addition to being a high growth sector, ICTs represent a substantial and increasing part of the added value of all products and services. In the EU for instance, of around 1.4 % annual productivity growth between 1995 and 2000, it is estimated that around 0.7 % was due to ICTs.
ICTs help meet the growing demands for better healthcare ( e Health), for efficient education and lifelong learning ( e Learning), for better quality of life in ageing, for more security and inclusion as well as better participation. ICTs enable public services and new digital content to be delivered more efficiently and in a more targeted, customised and accessible manner. However, investments in ICTs and the use of online services in Europe are lower and slower than our major competitors, especially in service sectors. Between 1995 and 2001, investment in IT capital goods ran at 1.6 % of GDP less than the US i. Although primary responsibility for investment programmes rests with business and national administrations; there is a Community role. The Telecom Council therefore called in December 2004 for a comprehensive policy on ICT. This was confirmed by the European Council of March 2005 which asked the Commission to prepare a new information society initiative.
The specific ICT Policy Support Programme will be one of the means to support actions identified in the new initiative called “i2010: European Information Society” as announced in the Communication from the Commission on a renewed Lisbon strategy of February 2005 i. It will stimulate the wider uptake of ICT by citizens, businesses and governments and aim at intensifying the public investment in ICT. The programme will build on the lessons learned from the e Ten, e Content and MODINIS programmes whilst improving synergies between them and improving their impact. The programme will support actions to develop the single European information space and to strengthen the internal market for information products and services. It will aim to stimulate innovation through a wider adoption of and investment in ICTs to develop an inclusive information society, more efficient and effective services in areas of public interest and to improve quality of life. It will also address the fragmentation of the European digital content market, supporting production and distribution of online European content and promoting Europe’s cultural and linguisticdiversities, and will follow on from 2008 from the e Content+ programme recently adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.
Although most financial support for the deployment and best use of ICT comes from the private sector and the Member States, Community support enables, in particular, the development of common approaches and coordinated actions, the sharing of good practices and the deployment of interoperable solutions across the Union. It also plays also a key role in promoting a multilingual environment respectful of cultural diversity. Community action is also essential to ensure proper articulation with other EU policies including the regulatory frameworks for eCommunications and Television Without Frontiers as well as the internal market, employment, education and youth, sustainable development, security and trade policy.
The Intelligent Energy – Europe Programme
The Intelligent Energy – Europe programme (2003-2006) i will be continued and enlarged under the CIP. Based on Article 175 i of the Treaty, it is the Intelligent Energy – Europe Programme’s objective to support sustainable development as it relates to energy and to contribute to the achievement of the general goals of environmental protection, security of supply and competitiveness.
Nearly 94 % of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to energy consumption, and transport is responsible for 90 % of the increases in CO2 emissions. Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are essential to meeting Kyoto requirements and to reducing Europe’s growing dependence on energy imports, which could reach almost 70 % in 2030. The Union has been working towards the ambitious target of a 12 % share of renewable energy in gross inland consumption by 2010 i and to further reduce final energy consumption, but these targets will not be reached unless considerable extra action is taken at Member State and Community levels. The Union has set itself clear quantitative targets for the uptake of intelligent energy to be achieved by 2010. These include doubling the share of renewable energy sources in EU energy consumption to reach 12 %, increasing to 21 % the share of electricity generated by renewable sources, and increasing the share of bio-fuels up to 5.75 % in all petrol and diesel used for transport. A number of more qualitative targets are also to be achieved such as increased sales of energy efficient products/appliances and expand high-efficient cogeneration. Two important proposals have been made for Member States to extra reduce the amount of energy for final consumption by 1 % per year and for reduced energy consumption of energy-using products and a number of products complying to eco-design requirements.
In parallel to these legislative measures, the Community has been running programmes to help the implementation of Community legislation. The Intelligent Energy – Europe programme is the Community’s non-technological programme in the field of energy focusing on the removal of non-technical barriers, the creation of market opportunities and raising awareness.
An ex-ante evaluation for the “Intelligent Energy – Europe” successor programme found that the current programme is cost effective and that the new programme should provide continuity.
The Intelligent Energy – Europe Programme under the CIP aims therefore to accelerate action in relation to the agreed Community strategy and targets in the field of sustainable energy, in particular: to facilitate the development and implementation of the energy regulatory framework; to increase the level of investment in new and best performing technologies and to increase the uptake and demand for energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and energy diversification, including in transport, through awareness and knowledge raising among key actors in the EU. The programme will help to bridge the gap between the successful demonstration of innovative technologies and their effective introduction to the market to achieve mass deployment. It will help to strengthen the administrative capacity both to develop strategies and policies and to implement existing regulations, particularly with regard to the new Member States. The programme will also aim at sustainable economic growth with job creation, greater social cohesion and higher quality of life, while preventing waste of natural resources.
The programme will be structured in three specific fields: (i) energy efficiency and the rational use of energy, in particular in the building and industry sectors (‘SAVE’); (ii) new and renewable energy sources for centralised and decentralised production of electricity and heat and their integration into the local environment and the energy systems (‘ALTENER’); (iii) energy aspects of transport, the diversification of fuels, such as through new developing and renewable energy sources, and renewable fuels and energy efficiency in transport (‘STEER’). Moreover the Programme will provide funding for horizontal initiatives integrating energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in several sectors of the economy and/or combining various instruments, tools and actors within the same action or project.
The international dimension of the Intelligent Energy Programme (‘COOPENER’) will be continued in the frame of the new external assistance instruments proposed by the Commission in September 2004 i.
Two main sorts of projects will be supported: on the one hand promotion and dissemination projects, which are supposed to promote favourable general conditions for sustainable energy technologies including administrative structures, general awareness, horizontal and vertical cooperation and networking as well as better implementation of the regulatory framework; on the other hand replication projects fostering systematically the deployment of new sustainable energy technologies.
Regarding the implementation and management of the programme, the Commission is considering extending the term of the newly created ‘Intelligent Energy Executive Agency’, and delegating to this body those programme management tasks that do not involve political choices.
Although the component programmes of the CIP will be served by their own management committees and establish their own work programmes, the CIP will provide a coherent approach to overarching objectives. Implementation instruments will often serve more than one programme, making them clearer for users. The CIP will therefore be simpler than the current arrangements where multiple funding schemes and instruments coexist.
For example:
- Community financial instruments will support SMEs in traditional sectors, and those investing in ICTs, innovation and environmental technologies.
- Business and innovation support services will play an important role in ensuring SMEs’ access to information relating to the functioning and opportunities of the internal market, providing feedback from SMEs for policy development and impact assessments, and helping enterprises co-operate across borders. But they will also disseminate information and raise awareness of innovation-related policies, legislation, and support programmes, promote the exploitation of results of research programmes and provide brokerage services for technology and knowledge transfer, and for partnership building between innovation actors i.
- Networking between stakeholders will be central to the programme. It facilitates the flow of knowledge and ideas, which is in itself a crucial condition for innovation.
Certain tasks relating to the specific programmes are planned to be indirectly managed by the Commission via the use of new and/or adaptation of existing executive agencies. This applies in particular to projects in the field of energy which will be managed and implemented by the extended ‘Intelligent Energy Executive Agency’. The Community financial instruments for SMEs will mainly be managed by the EIF. Cooperation with international financial institutions will involve international development banks such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The CIP, the Structural Funds and Rural Development
The regional dimension is essential to improving European competitiveness and innovation. The Commission’s proposed new cohesion policy addresses persistent regional disparities in these fields by making competitiveness and innovation an explicit and central basis for Structural Fund intervention in the “Convergence” and “Regional competitiveness and employment” Objectives. In addition, the Commission will propose Community Strategic Guidelines on cohesion, which will set out how EU-level priorities – including competitiveness and innovation – should be taken into account by the national and regional authorities responsible for managing structural funds. The Guidelines will be an opportunity to strongly encourage managing authorities to pursue investments that are complementary to EU competitiveness and innovation policy. If these objectives are to be met efficiently and effectively, interventions must be based on an understanding of SME needs, effective policies for boosting enterprise and entrepreneurship, innovation and ICT use, investments in environmental technologies, energy use, good practice in debt and equity instruments, and in technology transfer.
Similar considerations hold for many interventions of the new Rural Development Policy. Following its core objectives – improved competitiveness of the agro-food chain, sustainable land management, economic diversification and local development – it contributes to rural areas throughout the EU to sustainable development, growth and employment. A particular accent is put on innovation. Most enterprises in rural areas are SMEs, with a high proportion of micro and small enterprises for which access to innovation and ICT is vital.
Regions eligible for the convergence objective of the Structural Funds are encouraged to take part in exchanges organized in the context of the CIP, so that their specific situations are taken into account in the identification of good practices adapted to their needs.
Where the CIP identifies and promotes best practice and excellence in these fields, cohesion funds as well as the new Rural Development Fund should ideally be used by national and regional authorities as the main instrument to bring those who are lagging behind up to these levels of excellence; boosting regional competitiveness and innovation and thereby reducing disparities. Proposals for regional funding will be developed by regional bodies to meet their own needs and ambitions (as befits the reinforced principles of subsidiarity and proportionality). Therefore care must be taken not to compromise the cohesion principle or conflict with the bottom-up governance structure of the Structural Funds. However, Member States and regions should be actively encouraged by the CIP to ensure that ERDF and EARDF supported measures follow best practice examples in the field, as developed and identified in the context of CIP actions, in particular through networking activities.
Competitiveness and Innovation in Europe will be supported not just by the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (FP7-RTD), as well as by the CIP. These programmes will be complementary and mutually reinforcing in their support of the Lisbon goals.
The CIP will address both technological as well as non-technological aspects of innovation. With respect to technological innovation, it will focus on the downstream parts of the research and innovation process. More specifically, it will promote innovation support services for technology transfer and use, projects for the implementation and market take-up of existing new technologies in fields like ICT, energy and environmental protection i, as well as the development and coordination of national and regional innovation programmes and policies. It will also improve the availability and access of innovative SMEs to external sources of financing, including for R&D and innovation activities and promote the participation of SMEs in the FP7-RTD.
For its part, the FP7-RTD will continue and strengthen support of trans-national cooperation in research, technological development and demonstration, in particular between enterprises and public research organisations, of specific RTD schemes in favour of SMEs, and of researcher’s mobility between firms and academia. In doing so, it will focus more on the technological innovation needs of industry and introduce new actions, in the form of joint technological initiatives in key areas of industrial interest. It will also further promote the dissemination and use of research results within projects and in specific thematic fields as well the coordination of national research programmes and policies. Support of trans-national cooperation between research-driven regional clusters will complement similar activities of the CIP focussing on regional innovation actions and policies.
Education and training are essential for ensuring that Europe’s human capital is kept up to date with the skills and knowledge necessary for innovation. A highly skilled workforce responds better to the quickly changing demands of enterprise and finds it easier to move to new jobs. Education and training also contributes to the diffusion of knowledge and to the process whereby organisations learn from their experiences and improve their processes, products and services. Europe needs more and better investment in education and training, and the adoption of the proposed ‘Integrated Action Programme in the field of Lifelong Learning’[32] will help to promote entrepreneurship, support continuous vocational education and training and help organisations to become ‘learning organisations’.
The European Social Fund (ESF) will also support as a priority lifelong learning systems as part of its priority to increase adaptability of workers and enterprises, in particular by promoting increased investment in human resources by enterprises, especially SMEs, and workers.
The CIP, the ESF and the Lifelong Learning programme, in particular the actions under Leonardo da Vinci are thus mutually supportive.
Actions to support digital literacy will take into account the policy work on basic competences being carried out under the auspices of ‘Education and Training 2010’ and the support offered for digital literacy under the ‘Lifelong Learning programme’.
It is vital for competitiveness and socio-economic cohesion in European Union that the Trans-European Networks for Transport, Energy and Telecommunications be completed and in operation. Access to the networks is a factor of key importance underpinning success for SMEs within the single market, as recalled by Article 154 of the Treaty. The CIP and the policy on Trans-European Networks reinforce each other by helping to foster competitiveness for business: for example, the Intelligent Energy – Europe programme will support more rational, efficient, and sustainable patterns in energy use, by identifying and removing administrative, communications, and other non-technological barriers. CIP will thus facilitate interconnection with, and access to the Trans-European Energy Network.
Contents
- CONSULTATIONS AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT
- BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS
- 2. THE COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATION FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME
- The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme
- The ICT Policy Support Programme
- 3. MANAGEMENT OF THE NEW COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATION FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME
- 4. CONSISTENCY WITH OTHER POLICIES
- The CIP and FP7-RTD
- The CIP and Lifelong Learning
- The CIP and Trans-European networks
- 6. SUBSIDIARITY AND PROPORTIONALITY
The Commission’s proposal for CIP has undergone an impact assessment and public consultation. Stakeholders' views on the proposed CIP were collected from December 2004 to February 2005 on the basis of a consultation document. This focused on the benefits and added value of bringing together the different elements into a single programme, and on how the programme will relate to other Community measures on competitiveness and innovation. Stakeholder consultations for some of the specific components of the CIP have been carried out separately.
The idea of creating a framework for actions to boost competitiveness and innovation received generally positive feed-back, although some feared that the identity, visibility and political focus of individual programmes might be weakened. The main objectives of the programme were also overwhelmingly supported, particularly its support for innovation. Respondents concurred that there was a clear need for European level intervention in these areas, notwithstanding the primary responsibility of Member States. The majority of stakeholders saw the proposed framework programme as an opportunity for making the component programmes of CIP more user-friendly and easily accessible to SMEs.
The consultation process raised many useful comments and suggestions; these were, however more relevant to programming and implementation stages, rather than the legal act and will be taken into account at the appropriate time.
In accordance with its legal bases, the programme will address the challenges identified in a proportionate way and in accordance with the subsidiarity principle i. All of the fields covered in the CIP are the shared responsibility of the Member States and the Community i. The CIP will only intervene where there is a demonstrable European added value in working through Community instruments to improve delivery at national and subnational levels or for achieving Community goals. The management committees established for components of the programme will ensure that the activities supported by it are in line with Member States’ priorities. Proportionality will primarily be ensured by targeting intervention on market failures.
The programme instruments are also in line with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality:
- Community financial instruments for SMEs will provide additional leverage to national instruments with the backing of the EIF’s AAA rating. Proportionality of these instruments is ensured by providing leverage through market-based intermediaries. They will address problems that continue to occur despite the integration of the market for financial services due to recognised and persistent market failures, and they will complement other (own-resource based) interventions by the EIF as well as the activities of other international financial institutions. The European dimension will ensure diffusion of good practice in the delivery of such instruments, and also stimulate coordinated activities. In many Member States such provision is deficient and access to suitable finance remains an obstacle to entrepreneurship, innovation, information society development and the development and application of environmental technologies.
- Community support for European business and innovation support services will help partner organisations operating in the Member States to provide SMEs with additional business and innovation support services and to foster business cooperation throughout the EU. With a common support structure, individual centres will be able to offer decentralised information and advisory services. Proportionality is ensured by cooperating with partner organisations that are well integrated into the economic life of their region.
- Policy Development actions, such as exchanges of experience, benchmarking and coordination of national policies, will assist authorities in improving their policy approaches to conditions for entrepreneurship, SME development, innovation, eco-innovation and development and adoption of ICTs. Such exchanges are part of the open method of coordination and are used as a tool for helping national authorities to improve their own policy responses. They may be followed up through twinning actions whose Community added value derives from their cross-border nature.
- The major support for business innovation projects in Europe stems from national and regional programmes and schemes. However, the programmes are still fragmented along national and regional lines and therefore often cannot draw on the creative potential available in other EU countries. Support for teaming up national and regional business innovation programmes addresses this problem, in particular through exchanges and promotion of best practice.
- Shared cost projects such as implementation, pilot and market replication projects will aim to encourage innovation, networking among stakeholders, and the transfer and market-take up of new technologies, often on a cross-border basis. Financial assistance allocated to such projects will be established on the basis of the Community added value of the action and in accordance with the objectives and work programme of the relevant programme.
The “legislative financial statement” presented with this Decision sets out the indicative budgetary implications. It is compatible with the financial programming for the period 2007-2013 as proposed by the Commission i.