Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-09-Speech-1-114"
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"en.20090309.18.1-114"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are reaching the end of a long process, a long and successful process through which we have been able to move small and medium-sized enterprises from the periphery to the centre. It has been a long process for us to reach the point where this internal market, although unified, is not homogeneous. A long road, at the end of which we see that the 23 million small and medium-sized enterprises operate with the same administrative burdens and rules as the 41 thousand large European companies, even though the former are unable to enter the market under anything like the same conditions.
It seems to us that the Commission, under Commissioner Verheugen’s leadership, has come a long way over the past five years, and thus we welcome the change in philosophy within the European Union, intended to eliminate the hurdles facing SMEs both at EU level and in the Member States. One possibility for increasing the turnover of SMEs is to enable more and more of them to enter the European internal market, since at present only 8% of enterprises do so, and only 15% of their turnover is generated on that market. Their turnover could increase if they were able to participate much more extensively in innovative research and development programmes and projects. It would help the market activities of small businesses if sources of funding and financing were made much more readily accessible than at present. Their turnover could increase if we were at last to create a Community patent, thus preventing cheap counterfeit products from squeezing out intellectual property produced by small businesses.
I believe that the most sensitive challenge from the perspective of the success of the entire Lisbon Strategy is certainly to help SMEs move from their own Member State to the EU internal market. In the current economic situation, however, we need to point out, over and above what has been said, that there are problems with the major source of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises. For that source continues to be credit. The increased risk sensitivity of financial institutions has meant, however, that more and more companies have difficulty accessing credit. Invoking the uncertainty of the economic situation, the banks are holding back on making loans in these circles. Directors of SMEs complain that thousands of companies and tens of thousands of workplaces may be endangered. It is fundamentally in our interest to ensure that the funds intended to inject liquidity into the system reach the economy rather than remain in bank safes. One of the most important steps is for banks to begin to stimulate the economy and SMEs as soon as possible.
The other challenge is to create European solidarity. This is the only way to offer more effective protection than what nation states can provide to SMEs that are in difficulty because of the crisis. In saying this, I want to point out that the situation of SMEs and the way this is handled is also a test of European solidarity. It shows that Europe is capable of assuming shared risk with Member States beyond the euro zone as well. The measures aimed principally at stabilising the euro area can easily give rise – and have already given rise – to a financial vacuum in the non-euro zone. In the current situation, therefore, I must ask European decision-makers and the representatives of the banking sector not to allow for the creation of a two-speed Europe, since the collapse of a region where SMEs play a decisive role – constituting more than 90% of all businesses – would bring with it catastrophic economic consequences. I request the support of the Commission and of my fellow Members to this end. I thank my fellow rapporteur, Nicole Fontaine, and the other shadow rapporteurs for their work, and once again congratulate Commissioner Verheugen for the achievements to date."@en1
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