Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-23-Speech-4-468"
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"en.20090423.68.4-468"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in December last year the European Council agreed on a European economic recovery plan. This plan includes concrete measures for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, the most important of which are the measures aimed at improving access to finance and reducing the administrative burden on business. At the same time the European Council expressed its support for increased intervention by the European Investment Bank in the years 2008 to 2011, particularly with loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, which represents an increase of EUR 10 billion compared to current lending in this sector. Additionally, the European Council has supported temporary overruns of threshold values for at least two years in relation state support involving sums up to EUR 500 000 and adjustments in the state support framework which are essential for boosting support to companies, particularly small and medium-sized ones. The European Council also called for the use of accelerated procedures allowed under European Community law for awarding public contracts and for a reduction in the administrative burden on companies. The European Council also supports full implementation of the Commission action plan on the Small Business Act initiative that was adopted by the Council on 1 December 2008. The action plan for the Small Business Act initiative should help small and medium-sized enterprises in the period of economic turmoil by improving access to loans, reducing the administrative burden, helping small and medium-sized enterprises to exploit the benefits of the internal market and increasing competitiveness on foreign markets. On 5 March the Council concluded that the action plan should be fully implemented as quickly as possible at Community and Member State levels while complying with the principles of subsidiarity.
Additionally, the Council again mentioned the importance of further improvements in access to finance – I am thinking of loans, guarantees, mezzanine finance, etc – and also to venture capital for newly established innovative enterprises and for small and medium-sized enterprises where it is necessary to take account of the effects of the current financial crisis. We must strengthen market access for small and medium-sized enterprises above all through more monitoring of the market and of individual sectors in order to identify and tackle barriers to the internal market. Requirements for accounting and procedures for setting up new companies should be essentially simplified and speeded up. At its meeting on 19 and 20 March the European Council agreed on the following measures: eliminating existing barriers and preventing the emergence of new ones, achieving a fully functioning internal market, further reducing the administrative burden, improving the framework conditions for industry in order to retain a strong industrial base for enterprise with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized firms and innovation, supporting partnerships between the different areas of business, research, education and training and increasing the quality of investments in research, knowledge, and education.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to say that on 10 March 2009 the Council achieved a political agreement that all Member States would have the option, based on a change to Directive 2006/112/EC, to implement permanently reduced VAT rates on a range of labour intensive services, and these are usually services provided by small enterprises, of course. Among the other legislative proposals arising from the Small Business Act initiatives the Council should adopt a regulation on the Statute of the European Private Company which would make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to conduct cross-border business activities. The Council will also look at revising the late payments directive, with the aim of ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises are paid on time for all commercial transactions. As far as the agenda for better regulation is concerned, the Commission last year presented 11 new accelerated measures for reducing the administrative burden on business with the aim of achieving a 25% reduction in the existing administrative burden caused by EU regulations by 2012. According to estimates, this could lead to savings of about EUR 30 billion, and the greatest benefit would go to small and medium-sized enterprises. On 10 March this year the Council called on the Commission to propose specific new measures for reducing the burden in respect of each of the 13 key priority areas in the action plan. The actual steps in relation to this include the adoption of proposals for simplifying the third and sixth directives applying to mergers and breakups of commercial undertakings at the first reading in the European Parliament, and also approving a revision of the fourth and seventh directives. However, this important work should continue with the aim of achieving the 25% reduction in the administrative burden and the Commission should complete its review of all existing legal regulations as quickly as possible."@en1
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