External evaluations have stressed that the horizontal role in the delivery of European business support services should be strengthened. This concerns the dissemination of information on Community programmes and the promotion of the participation of SMEs in those programmes, in particular SME participation in the Community framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration.

the Commission shall encourage the Member States to take into account the projects declared to be of European interest when planning the programming of the Structural Funds, in particular in regions covered by Objective 1, having regard to national transport plans falling within the scope of existing Community support frameworks.

It shall act in support of the Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution established by Decision No 2850/2000/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2000 setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution(8) and of the Community mechanism in the field of civil protection assistance interventions established by Council Decision 2001/792/EC, Euratom of 23 October 2001 establishing a Community mechanism to facilitate reinforced cooperation in civil protection assistance interventions(9)".

On the basis of the current legal and regulatory framework, the Commission would like to inform the honourable Member that any Community financial grants that might be necessary to overcome these specific problems of the Greek rural can be taken from the total appropriations of the 3rd Community Support Framework for Greece (2000-2006) including its programming reserve.

In reply to your questions on the third Community Support Framework, the first prepayments have been signed, accounting, if I am not mistaken, for approximately 10%, and as for counting jobs for the second Community Support Framework, I do not think we could supply actual figures, because they would probably be fictitious, by which I mean that there are the direct jobs created under the Greek programmes, the stages, and the indirect jobs created by training and the impact of local development funds, either in the public sector or in the private sector following training.

In addition, when it comes to prepare and negotiate with the Member States concerned the Community support frameworks (CSFs) and single programming documents (SPDs) for the seven outermost regions, the Commission will, in accordance with the guidelines it adopted for the 2000-2006 period, introduce and consolidate financial arrangements for companies, particularly financial engineering arrangements such as risk capital.