Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-11-Speech-3-529-000"
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"en.20110511.34.3-529-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I am grateful to Parliament for the interest shown in the Small Business Act and the opportunity afforded by this especially to discuss what action we should take with regard to the different initiatives mentioned in relation to the review of the Small Business Act.
The Small Business Act is a very important tool which helps us create a more favourable business environment for small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises make a major contribution to the European economy as the vast majority of companies belong to this category and they provide jobs for over 90 million people throughout Europe. For this reason, the full implementation of the policy for small and medium-sized enterprises and, in particular, the Small Business Act, is a high priority task for the Hungarian Presidency. The success of our competitiveness strategy depends on how our policy initiatives affect small and medium-sized enterprises. One of the keys to future growth is that highly competitive and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises should operate in Europe. Accordingly, the Council welcomes with great pleasure the Commission’s communication on the review of the Small Business Act, which was published on 23 February 2011. In the communication, the Commission suggests various new initiatives in several priority areas for further action to be taken. These initiatives were created as the result of wide-ranging consultations with associations of small and medium-sized enterprises and the relevant authorities. Thus, they duly bear in mind the interests of both the enterprises themselves and other stakeholders.
The Commission’s communication was discussed at the informal meeting of competitiveness ministers in Gödöllő in Hungary on 13 April 2011. At these talks, the ministers fully supported the Presidency’s opinion that the four main issues to be handled as priorities are smart regulation, financing, internationalisation and governance. More work is needed to enable us to make progress in these issues. At the same time, it is the Presidency’s firm intention to maintain the impetus of the process at the meeting of the Competitiveness Council to be held on 31 May 2011, which will also consider the mid-term review of the Small Business Act. At the aforementioned meeting, the Presidency would like the Council to adopt conclusions in which the ‘think small first’ principle is applied in particular, that is to say, the principle which the Commission’s communication is based on.
As regards the status of the European private company, the European Commission first made a recommendation on the subject in a Council draft regulation in 2008. The idea behind the proposal was to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to do business in the single market, and this must result in reducing costs and increased economic growth. Some concerns arose in the Council about certain aspects and parts of the proposal. Despite the commendable efforts of the Swedish and Belgian presidencies, the Member States have not managed to reach agreement to this day. I can assure the honourable Members that the Hungarian Presidency is striving to find the way to progress with regard to the particularly problematic issues of this proposal and will continue to do all it can to bring the matter to a successful conclusion."@en1
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