EU support for investments by microenterprises

17 November 2014
E-009371-14
Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 130
Alfred Sant (S&D)

Subject: EU support for investments by microenterprises

Question(s)
Could the Commission provide a breakdown of the disbursements made, country by country, year by year, programme by programme, with regard to microenterprises?

Answer(s)

4 March 2015
E-009371/2014

Answer given by Vice-President Georgieva on behalf of the Commission
The Commission would like to inform the Honourable member that the term ‘microenterprises’ is not fit for reporting purposes in the central budgetary accounting system of the Commission. The Commission cannot therefore readily establish details of such amounts. Furthermore, it cannot undertake, for the purposes of answering a written question, the lengthy and costly research that would be required to provide the Honourable Member with the information requested.

As regards funds managed directly by the Commission, the Commission recommends the Honourable Member to examine the Commission’s website established for the Financial Transparency System (FTS)(1), which enables the user to perform searches in the database on the basis of several criteria, i.e. the name of beneficiary. The database concerns funds managed directly by the Commission and provides information on identified beneficiaries of funding from 2007 onwards.

Concerning funds where management is shared with Member States [Financial Regulation, Article 58.1(b)] or regarding indirect management [Financial Regulation, Article 58.1(c)] it is the cooperating partners (especially Member States) which can provide information on beneficiaries of EU funds(2).

(1) http://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.htm
(2) see more on http://ec.europa.eu/contracts_grants/beneficiaries_en.htm