Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-10-19-Speech-2-546"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20101019.23.2-546"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank the team of shadow rapporteurs from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, my colleagues and everyone who contributed to this splendid result. Without constructive and fair cooperation with the Commission and with the Belgian Presidency, we would certainly not have achieved this result.
In summary, the next steps are that, after tomorrow’s vote, we expect the Council to conduct a final positive vote and then the Member States will be able to implement this legislation. We do not expect it to take two years for this to be implemented. Instead, we expect the Member States to begin to transpose it into national law as early as January of next year.
As rapporteur, I am – as you can imagine – very pleased with the result, firstly because we have made significant improvements in relation to the old directive, and secondly because we have introduced new ways to encourage better payment practices. We have achieved the goal. Well, I would prefer to say that the course has been set for improving the liquidity of SMEs, the small and medium-sized enterprises, and for securing investments in new products, new jobs and new processes.
Why was it necessary to improve this directive? The legislation from 2000 was non-binding and not very efficient. In recent years, payment practices in almost all Member States have deteriorated, and this happened even before the financial and economic crisis. The reform was also requested by the small businesses that expressed their wishes within the framework of the Small Business Act. They wanted payment practices in Europe to be organised in a considerably more efficient manner.
With regard to the results, I can say, firstly, that we have trodden a new path. We have strict rules. As a matter of principle, invoices must be paid within 30 days with few exceptions, and these must be justified. We have introduced a higher late payment interest rate of 8%. We have set the recovery costs at a completely non-bureaucratic fixed amount of EUR 40, and we have made it easier than it was previously for small businesses to assert their rights.
The second aspect to the new path, however, is the positive incentives and the new instruments, for example, the naming of customers with good payment practices, more information provided to small businesses concerning their rights, payment in instalments and the promotion of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
This legislation is also part of the ‘better regulation’ approach and it will also apply to the EU institutions. We are particularly proud of this, because – as I am sure you can imagine – not everyone was enthusiastic about it.
Of course, there were a few conflicts and I would like to mention some of these. Firstly, to start with, there were certainly major differences and a diversity of opinions in Parliament. The 100 amendments alone demonstrate that we first had to tussle together over this in Parliament, too. The Commission was certainly not always happy with our endeavours, including the extension of this to the business to business level, but I think that, overall, we have achieved a good result.
It was the Council that posed the problems. It is regrettable that the Council has not always fulfilled its objective of helping small businesses. I find that particularly regrettable for the relatively rich and well-structured countries like Germany and Austria.
With regard to the professional organisations, I can only say that they were constructive, even though we, naturally, did not always accept or were not always able to go with their opinions."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples