General provisions applicable to all financial engineering instruments
Article 34
1. Pursuant to Article 55(8) of the basic Regulation, as part of an operational programme, the EFF may co-finance expenditure in respect of an operation comprising contributions to support financial engineering instruments for enterprises, primarily to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including micro enterprises, as defined in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC ( 21 ) as of 1 January 2005, such as venture capital funds, guarantee funds and loan funds including through holding funds. The financial engineering instruments shall be in the form of actions which make repayable investments or provide guarantees for repayable investments, or both. The conditions set out in Articles 35, 36 and 37 shall apply to them. 2. The statement of expenditure, as regards financial engineering instruments, shall include the total expenditure paid in establishing or contributing to such instruments. However, at the partial or final closure of the operational programme, the eligible expenditure shall be the total of any payments for investment in enterprises from each of the financial engineering instruments referred to in paragraph 1 or any guarantees provided, including amounts committed as guarantees by guarantee funds and eligible management costs. The corresponding statement of expenditure shall be corrected accordingly. 3. Interest generated by payments from the operational programme to financial engineering instruments shall be used to finance financial engineering instruments for small and medium-sized enterprises, including micro enterprises. 4. Resources returned to the operation from investments undertaken by financial engineering instruments or left over after all guarantees have been honoured shall be reused by the competent authorities of the Member States concerned for the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises, including micro enterprises.