Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-01-Speech-4-036"
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"en.20070201.4.4-036"2
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"Mr President, I should like to congratulate you once again, and to thank the Commissioner.
In Britain, SMEs are unfairly shut out of public procurement due to well-meaning requirements such as corporate social responsibility and environmental standards; quite often a requirement for three years of audited accounts, which many small businesses cannot meet; a lack of competitive tendering; the bundling of contracts that become too big for SMEs and favour the large companies; and secrecy and a lack of transparency.
We know that the EU directive requires transparency and competitive tendering, but most contracts that SMEs bid for are quite often below the threshold. So when you speak to SMEs and ask them what they want to see, they say they want to see a cut in bureaucracy and paperwork. They want to see authorities avoiding the one-size-fits-all requirement for certification. They want to see contracts advertised on websites such as ‘supply2.gov’, and they also want to see unbundled contracts. But we have to recognise that government departments are not commercial organisations and will often want to seek to avoid the extra work involved in multiple tenders, so we therefore need to provide incentives for governments and local government.
In America, targets have been provided as to whether fair competition actually does or does not exist. SMEs do not require quotas, but they need a performance metric to see whether there is fair competition. Also in America there are small SME advisers helping the government to enable SMEs to have fair access. These requirements – benchmarks and competition advocates – would probably not be allowed under the WTO agreement, and I understand the reason, but it does unintentionally forbid measures which ensure fair competition.
The WTO agreement is actually generally positive, as it is anti-protectionist, but it forbids measures which are needed to help small businesses. So while some Member States want an opt-out, others rightly fear that this would increase protectionism. Therefore, let us call on the Commission to seek a compromise whereby an opt-out is secured, but a new agreement is drafted to allow SME-friendly measures and to greatly extend anti-protectionist measures. If we allow SME-friendly measures, the agreement would remove America’s reasons for its opt-out, which has been used to retain the Buy America Act. It would also help British and European SMEs to compete globally."@en1
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