Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-13-Speech-2-691-000"
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"en.20110913.44.2-691-000"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, I reiterate the Commission’s commitment to providing robust support for a policy to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As you know, we are working to prepare a text on internationalisation and therefore, this evening’s debate has been very valuable since I have taken on board the observations made and I also agree with many of the points that have been stressed.
In terms of internationalisation, we have signed agreements on standards and relations between SMEs and shall continue to do so. The last one I signed was with Chile and then – to answer Ms Ţicău’s question – we shall be signing one with Brazil during the next EU-Brazil Summit, plus another with Argentina. We are also doing a great deal of work in Latin America, where there is great enthusiasm for strong ties with European businesses.
The figure that was put forward to me as a target to aim for seems like an intelligent proposal. Mr Rinaldi is not here but I shall appropriate it and we shall be sure to use it, perhaps as early as the tabling of the text on the internationalisation of SMEs. I hope I have replied to most of the additional questions that were posed during the debate, having responded – I think – thoroughly to the first five during the first speech. I apologise, Madam President, if I have dragged this out, but the topic is so significant for our economy and there were so many questions that I could hardly stop myself from providing equally thorough answers.
We have an important problem in terms of access to finance, but we have already spoken about this in the course of this debate, under this new way of meeting between Parliament and the Commission. It is important for the directive on late payments to be implemented as soon as possible by the Member States and that is why I have asked the European Commission’s Mr SME, Mr Calleja, to insist in tomorrow’s meeting of all the SME ambassadors that this directive must be transposed before the deadline. This is one aspect of access to finance that we are entitled to, but then there is the access to finance that we would like to see.
As you know, I have created a small and medium-size enterprise access to finance forum for SMEs, which is already bearing fruit: we have managed to free up the blocked EUR 30 million that was meant to help SMEs during the crisis; we are working on venture capital deals and on a series of initiatives; and the financial perspective 2014-2020 includes a series of specific interventions that should allow SMEs to have greater access to EU funds.
I am referring in this instance to the large EUR 80 million pot for innovation, some of which will be reserved for SMEs, while there will also be the Eighth Framework Programme and, as discussed with Ms Geoghegan-Quinn, we will be changing the rules on access to financing for SMEs. Alongside this EUR 80 billion fund, there are another EUR 2.4 billion set aside specifically for improving the internationalisation and competitiveness of SMEs.
Moreover, we have already done a number of things. We spoke about multilingualism and reducing the tax burden. I can say that one of my first acts as Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship was to ensure that all the REACH [Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals] documentation was translated into all the languages of the Union. I also reduced the tax on registering REACH substances almost to zero, on a sliding scale from medium to small enterprises and onward to an almost 90% reduction in the tax burden on registration for micro-enterprises.
It is true that there is more work to be done and I share the worries of those who have said that the Council often waters down initiatives to help SMEs because there is a policy of budget reduction in place. I do share these concerns and I believe that the Commission and Parliament ought to insist that the Council does not reduce funding for SMEs, particularly in regard to the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.
In terms of competitiveness on global markets, it is well known that I have always been an ardent supporter of the level playing field, which is different from the principle of reciprocity, and which allows our enterprises to be competitive in the world and also to defend our know-how in situations which we deem to be risky.
I think a great deal can still be done, including with regard to exports. We must provide more muscular support for businesses in Europe, because it is true that many SMEs do not know what opportunities the European Union offers. We have a network in place – which I think needs to be strengthened – that is designed precisely to provide information to SMEs. However, even the Members of this House and Commissioners can provide better information to European entrepreneurs in their meetings.
We are also helping these entrepreneurs with a network that reaches beyond the borders of the European Union. Indeed, we have begun an important initiative in Beijing to ease access to China for SMEs, so that they can explore an extraordinarily important market. The headquarters that we have established for this initiative is not merely an office with a clerk, but comprises the coordination – under the umbrella of the European institutions – of all the chambers of commerce that operate in Beijing and in China. This is therefore a rather substantial operation; it is not just a formality and I hope that initiatives like this can grow and be put in place in India and other important countries across the world, as is my intention."@en1
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