Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-01-28-Speech-3-106-000"
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"en.20150128.13.3-106-000"2
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"Madam President, the ECR welcomes the fact that the Commission wants to narrow the investment gap in Europe. But I often speak to investors who have money to invest, but are scared off by red tape and see other parts of the world as far more attractive. So I think we need to recognise that this Fund will not be a silver bullet. In fact probably the most important part of the proposal is not the Fund itself but a so-called third pillar. What we need to do is cut red tape and bring down those barriers to investment.
Let me give you one example. I currently lend to entrepreneurs around the world via a successful American peer-to-peer lending platform. This platform tells me that they want to come to Europe but they are worried that EU legislation would not allow their business to succeed. So the true test of success here is not how many roads are built or how many pipelines are laid, but it is how many entrepreneurs will get financing and create sustainable jobs. And once they start their businesses, we need to make sure that EU legislation does not shut them down.
Since the beginning of the year, digital businesses now have to pay VAT in the country of the customer rather than the country of sale. Now we know that this law was aimed at the big businesses such as Amazon which sell via low tax countries, but this one-size-fits-all legislation is also shutting down microenterprises selling digital products such as eBooks, online designs, or online knitting patterns for example. They cannot afford to check on customers in 28 Member States. There is no VAT threshold and if they refuse to sell to customers in other EU countries they are now being told that they may be breaking EU anti-discrimination laws. So they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don’t. So what do they do? They close down.
So by all means let us speak in this House about helping SMEs, by all means let us talk about a digital single market, by all means let us talk about these investment programmes, but, if we are at all serious, let us rip away the red tape that is harming businesses today, here and now. Until we do that, no amount of investment will close the gap. The songwriter Bob Dylan once asked, ‘How roads must a man walk down?’ but let me ask how many investors have to leave the EU before we remove the barriers? How many microbusinesses have to close down before we solve the VAT MOSS problem? How many people have to be unemployed before we open the markets? I fear, as Bob Dylan would say today, ‘The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind’."@en1
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