10. Welcomes the proposal for a European Endowment for Democracy (EED), which is a timely response to the clamour for democracy by the populations of our neighbouring countries; underlines that it should be a flexible, fast and targeted mechanism for support and should complement already existing EU instruments and the exemplary work of longstanding European political or non-political foundations and civil society organisations, bearing in mind that tangible results should be an objective of this initiative; stresses that the Endowment should not hinder or duplicate the action already being taken by these foundations, or as part of exi ...[+++]sting European programmes, such as the EIDHR; stresses that its scope and organisation should be clearly defined and that its structures and procedures should be light and straightforward; calls upon the EEAS, the Commission and the (Polish) Presidency to present a clear demarcation of the competences of a future EED in relation to these instruments and frameworks; insists on a right of scrutiny and the involvement of the European Parliament in its governance structure, to help determine the annual objectives, priorities, expected results, and financial allocations in broad terms and to be part in the monitoring of activities; expresses some concerns about the fact that this future fund could be financed, fully or in part, outside of the EU budget and reaffirms the right of the budget authority to monitor and scrutinise the implementation of this fund; requests therefore, a clarification from the Commission and the Council on the issue;

10. Welcomes the proposal for a European Endowment for Democracy (EED), which is a timely response to the clamour for democracy by the populations of our neighbouring countries; underlines that it should be a flexible, fast and targeted mechanism for support and should complement already existing EU instruments and the exemplary work of longstanding European political or non-political foundations and civil society organisations, bearing in mind that tangible results should be an objective of this initiative; stresses that the Endowment should not hinder or duplicate the action already being taken by these foundations, or as part of exi ...[+++]sting European programmes, such as the EIDHR; stresses that its scope and organisation should be clearly defined and that its structures and procedures should be light and straightforward; calls upon the EEAS, the Commission and the (Polish) Presidency to present a clear demarcation of the competences of a future EED in relation to these instruments and frameworks; insists on a right of scrutiny and the involvement of the European Parliament in its governance structure, to help determine the annual objectives, priorities, expected results, and financial allocations in broad terms and to be part in the monitoring of activities; expresses some concerns about the fact that this future fund could be financed, fully or in part, outside of the EU budget and reaffirms the right of the budget authority to monitor and scrutinise the implementation of this fund; requests therefore, a clarification from the Commission and the Council on the issue;

− (DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, so great is the transparency of funds that the well-endowed rating agencies, the even better-endowed boards of banks and the more meagrely endowed regulatory authorities no longer knew what was going on.

Institutional investors: // This term refers mainly to insurance companies, pension funds and investment funds collecting savings and supplying funds to the markets, but also to other types of institutional wealth (e.g. endowment funds, foundations, etc).

Point 18: the cultural percentage, that is to say the principle of cultural endowments for works financed by the Structural Funds.

Whereas it is therefore necessary to adopt a Third Programme for a four-year period and to endow it with sufficient resources to attain its objectives; whereas the credibility of an approach which focuses on SMEs and the feasibility of the intended objectives require funding to take account of the recent enlargement of the Community;