Giorgio CHIARION CASONI

What Giorgio CHIARION CASONI has said (9)

• “Thank you very much, chair. And thank you also for the for the court reply. Uh, just a few replies because I think in terms of timing, we need to comply with the. So the a couple of points on the geographical distribution. I may suggest that I also we may send the data as at end 2024 for investeu to the to the, to the Parliament, just to show both in absolute amounts and in, in relative amounts in my reading is more balanced. But I hope I'm not wrong. So. Wrong. But I will send you. I will send the Parliament and the the data obviously on on the question of, of additionality, I would say two things. One, the as as correctly the court pointed out, the question is mostly on the ex-post assessment of additionality. And and indeed this is a is a relatively complicated matter to be assessed. So ex-ante, you know, in terms of process, we, we have the set up, an independent investment committee which assesses ex-ante the operations to be supported under Efsi and similarly under Investeu. So there is an excellent assessment of additionality. And this is the role of the Independent Investment Committee. Ex-post a we get the point made by the, by the court. And and we have agreed indeed to develop a methodology to assess as part of the ex-post evaluations, the additionality of EU support as, as as the court member explained by targeted surveys and structured interviews.”
  State Aid · European Banking Union
• “For the time being, the assessment leads to a positive assessment. We are still within the provisioning that we set out at the beginning, 35%. Just anecdotally, the revenues so far by far exceed the losses experienced. So we are talking about 1.8 billion of revenues and 600 million of losses. Obviously, things will change, losses will come. So I'm not promising the Parliament that that Efsi will be revenue generating. But just to say at this, at this point in time, revenues exceed losses. But and that's why there are flows that have been generated in FC and that that go back to the budget and now allowed. And one of the proposals of the Commission was to make these flows, uh, accessible for increasing the guarantee under Investeu. And this is currently being scrutinised by the Parliament under the legislative process on the lessons learned from the next MFF, we have done two evaluation of EFC. We have done one evaluation of Investeu that was published in September 2024 and we are currently preparing for the next MFF. So all of that and we take into account not only the experience under FC Investeu, but also, as the honourable member said before the experience under the European Innovation Council Fund and also what happens to us, we would like also to see what happens with other with other programs, because what has been a bit more complicated so far has been the possibility of blending, for example, loans under Investeu and grants under, I don't know, the innovation fund and sometimes they finance the same projects or and to try because there is a need to de-risk private financing and to bring up the, the, the, the overall investment in these areas.”
  Own EU resources · Size of EU budget
• “The other point is on the investment mobilised. So first the two things one we have to look at the regulation. The regulation says what is the investment mobilised up to the end of 2020 and then 22. So we could only base it on approvals and signatures. Having said that, under invest, in order to have a better tracking also at the level of final recipients, we are also looking at the at the investment mobilised at the level of disbursement. So this this will certainly overall will but will will improve and and complete the picture. But for example when it comes to signature it's not a sort of it's a very useful indication already of investment mobilised because for example, when the EIF invests in venture capital funds or engage with a financial intermediary, a Intermediate and commercial banks to make loans to SMEs. There is already a the creation of a market ecosystem and a venture capital system that allows these these companies to be financed. So we can not only look at the final stage, but we should also look at the intermediary phases in terms of approvals and, and, and and senators. Um, so I think with that.”
  State Aid · European Globalisation Adjustment Fund
• “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, and also, as I said before, on the on the on the recommendations made by the court, we we mostly accept or partially accept them the way a couple of points on the on the geographical distribution under invest you because this is one area where where we have a currently monitoring the situation. And actually I've been looking this morning at the figures and today and the in terms of ratio between the investment mobilized and the GDP of the country, which is probably a better figure than the absolute amount of investment mobilized nowadays. The the main the main country that is benefiting us at the end of 24 is Portugal, followed by Romania. And most of the smaller countries are actually and the highest, let's say in relative terms beneficiary. So there is a distribution. And this is also thanks to the to two things. One is the fact that there are not only national promotional banks, but also a certain new implementing partners like the Ebrd that are more active in, in, in, in cohesion countries and also the use of the member state compartment that that is that is higher in, in in in cohesion regions.”
  European Banking Union · Cohesion and rural funding
• “Thank you very much, chair. And thank you very much also to the court for the for the report that we welcome and for the excellent, excellent cooperation during the work. We are also supportive, in fact, of the report of the court in their analysis that contributed substantially to addressing investment gaps, and also that the that the Efsi support was relevant in several aspects, as also referred by the court before. So it has allowed the mobilisation of private resources to a great extent. And and it has been a successful instrument supporting approximately 1 million companies in Europe, in particular SMEs. And the court made six recommendations. We either accepted or partially accepted all, if not one, recommendation and the partial acceptance is basically due to the fact that there were some recommendations leading for the next generation of program of programs, and where we cannot now prejudge the design and nor the Colegislators take on these products. But in general, we all welcome the recommendation made by the court, maybe a few points on the on the on the methodology. So the the question on mobilisation of of resources, because we applied the methodology that was agreed by the FCC board and also that is in line also with the new and current financial regulation. So in this respect, we believe that, for example, I'm referring to the main source of of, let's say, a disconnection between our calculations and the calculation referred by the court concerning 77 million of overstatement, according to the court, due to the fact that the funds have not reached the final.”
  State Aid
• “So that's why we we transparently reported in that in the article 41 five report to the budgetary authority that this is included in blended instrument. But we couldn't disentangle and and as the that that explains a bit the difference of of estimations and other minor points. And I think we also took good note of the of the court. Remarks on the question of cancellations, which indeed may happen. This is normally in the financial world and and we have adapted our, our reporting system. And also in terms of when it comes, I think the court also recognised that there was a good monitoring of key parameters, especially on the financial side. That was very, very, very, let's say orthodox and and to the point, the, the when it comes to operational reporting. Also, we accepted the recommendations made by the court to, to, to to improve our, our scrutinising and procedures in order to, to get a more checklist and so on to check the the reports made by the, by the implementing partners. So with that I would like to to to close and thank the Parliament and the and the court for the good work done. Thank you.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies · Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “The final recipients, but actually the methodology and also the legal basis for so that the amount to be mobilized was to be expected at the time of approval and then of signatures. And, and it's embedded in the design of the, of the, of EFC and now also invest you that for example, when we intervened through venture capital funds, which is a major source of intervention for for the commission and the EIB Group and other implementing partners. Normally it takes 5 to 7 years for them to implement to deploy to final beneficiaries. So, for example, if you invest in a venture capital fund in 2021, then it takes until 26 or 28 to get the money through the final recipients. And this is a market unavoidable system. So that's why we believe that there was no such overstatement. Having said that, under, for example, invest EU, we better reflect the fact that raised by the court and we request actually the implementing partners to report not only on amounts signed and approved, but also on amount disbursed, which is a much better proxy for the amounts that actually reach the final recipients. When it comes to the other source of, let's say, a difference in level was the question of blending with other EU programs and Efsi again in that in that respect, there was the, the, the it was very difficult, not possible, at least for us to disentangle the contribution of Efsi from those of other financial instruments because they were blended under the same instrument in a, in a layered structure.”
  State Aid
• “But so far the different rules and procedures make it more complicated to blend. And and this creates also some administrative burden. Then coming to the to the let's say the drug figure of 800 million. Obviously just to say that we have to present the Efsi investment. Okay. We there is a difference of interpretation being 500,000,370 million. This is a multiannual programme, whereas 800 million is a is the gap annual gap estimated by by Draghi. And and I think in our commission stance, I think the risk in private investments will be one of the important features also for the next generation of programs. So thank you for the attention.”
  State Aid · Size of EU budget
• “So if we are currently developing the methodology, also in cooperation with colleagues of the AIB group, and we will we will try to address this, this, this point. Another point, just to make clear that we have always well, first, we have always reported fully correctly, both in budgetary terms and operational terms and very transparently in the article 41.5 reports and in the annual reports of Efsi and and in line with the, with the with the reporting methodology that was requested, as already explained, we are trying to further improve the such reporting under under investigation by also targeting the mobilized investment at the level of disbursements. Nevertheless, there is a limit in data collection points that we can have under for thousands and millions of of SMEs. And and if we want the data collection to be excessive, then it impacts on the simplification exercise, as the honourable member said before. So there is a trade off to be made on that. So we cannot we cannot uh, let's see, let's say we have an excessive reporting on that, on the, on the question of, of in budgetary terms, a couple of points every year we assess the adequacy of the provisioning under Efsi, like we do it under Investeu or other programmes of the Commission.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies