Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-19-Speech-4-130"
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"en.20060119.20.4-130"2
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".
Small and medium-sized enterprises play a vital role in competition and innovation, in vocational training and even in spatial planning. They create jobs and wealth.
This is all the more remarkable when you consider that they are often collapsing under fiscal, social and regulatory burdens that are as much as they can bear; that they have to face unrestricted global competition without the weapons of the big companies to defend themselves; that they find it more difficult to access capital, which is so vital to investment; and that a change of ownership often threatens their very existence.
Could the solution come from Brussels? I doubt it. Europe's policies have never really taken account of the interests and characteristics of SMEs, even though they make up 99% of businesses. Aid and Community programmes are mainly accessible to firms with specialised departments to deal with them. European legislation is staggeringly complex, and the standards imposed are expensive to implement. The policy of opening up the market to unbridled and unfair global competition only adds to the problem.
It is true that free enterprise creates wealth and employment, and it is true that we need to promote it. But if the European Union is to play a part in this, it cannot continue to be a technocracy that is more committed to European ideology than to the interests of Europeans."@en1
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