Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-172"
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"en.20050525.18.3-172"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the speedy agreement reached by the co
legislators on extending the multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship, and in particular for small and medium
sized enterprises. This extension will ensure that support continues to be provided to such enterprises until the end of the current Financial Perspective, and indeed the debate has already begun on the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, which is intended to replace the current programme and is due to be launched in 2007.
I am delighted that the co
legislators have approved additional funding, and I can assure you that we will be able to put these funds to effective use in order to provide small and medium
sized enterprises with access to loan and equity finance. Access to financial instruments continues to be a major problem for around 10
20% of European small and medium
sized enterprises.
Our Eurobarometer surveys reveal time and time again that financing problems are the greatest obstacle to business start
ups, and the Community financing instruments deployed under the multiannual programme have proved very successful in overcoming this problem. External evaluators have agreed that our market
oriented concept is exemplary, and Parliament has also acknowledged this success by approving annual increases in the funds made available for these instruments.
Cooperation with the European Investment Fund and use of the financial markets allow us to mobilise funds at a rate of up to 1:40 with guarantee instruments and of an average of 1:4 with the more specialised equity capital instrument, which is targeted at a smaller number of enterprises.
The additional EUR 7 million proposed by Mrs Thomsen and approved by the House today will therefore mobilise many times this sum in investment capital for existing small and medium
sized enterprises and business start
ups.
The Commission drafted its proposal in mid
2004, when the European Investment Fund was extremely pessimistic about the financing instruments’ chances of success in the 2005
2006 period, and when there was a lack of certainty over the amount of funding that would be available in the last year of the present Financial Perspective. It was for this reason that we were cautious when deciding on the figure that appears in our proposal on the financing instruments. Positive feedback from the European Investment Fund means that we now have a better idea of the market chances of these instruments, as well as a clear idea of the funds that will be available under the 2006 Community budget.
The Commission wishes to build on this success in the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and over EUR 1 billion of the Programme’s total proposed budget, which has been set at EUR 4.2 billion for the 2007
2013 period, has been earmarked for financing instruments.
We have put forward proposals for two new financing instruments that will operate alongside the existing ones. The first of these is a new risk capital instrument, which is a facility for high
growth and innovative small and medium
sized enterprises, and which is specially targeted at innovative small and medium
sized enterprises that require funding of between EUR 200 000 and EUR 2.5 million at the most crucial stage of their development. Finally, a new securitisation window has been proposed, the aim of which is to make it easier for local and regional banks to lend more to small and medium
sized enterprises."@en1
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