A discussion took place at ITRE Committee on the Commission’s proposal to amend the Council Regulation (EU) No 560/2014 of 6 May 2014 establishing the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking. The BBI JU is due to operate for 10 years until 2024. The main issue of the regulation concerns the need to modify the financial contribution management to operational costs (art 12). According to the present regulation, the private sector (represented by BIC) is expected to give financial contributions for operational costs directly to the BBI JU budget (i.e. financial contributions at a programme level). As a result, many companies have no benefit from the projects being financed from such contributions by the BBI JU. The solution identified by the European Commission and BIC consists in allowing companies to deliver financial contributions also by making direct payments to other beneficiaries in the consortium (i.e. financial contributions at project level). Read the Parliament draft report here.
Rapporteur: Miroslav Poche (S&D, Czech Republic)
