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Commission's initiative in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises
27.05.2008, 16:11
The "Small Business Act" for Europe (SBA), a European initiative aiming to stimulate the potential for growth and employment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe, will be adopted in next few months by the European Commission. This initiative aims to integrate the principle of "Think Small First" in European policies dealing with enterprise and to introduce a follow-up mechanism for the measures under the Lisbon process, to facilitate the growth dynamic of SMEs and their access to the internal market and to funding. It also needs to integrate the key legislative proposals presented at the same time as the SBA, concerning mass exemptions for SMEs to European rules governing state aid, the future status of the European private company and even reduce rates of value-added tax applicable to highly labour-intensive services.
The Commission is suggesting different ways in which the principle of "Think Small First" can be translated even more concretely into all European and national policies with an enterprise dimension. All new legislative and administrative initiatives must be accompanied by an impact assessment and be the subject of a two-month consultation with SME organisations. Future legislative acts will enter into force at the same time and at set dates. Extinction and revision courses may be included in European legislation to assess the impact of the rules on European SMEs. According to the Commission, SMEs should be obliged to communicate information only once to their national administration, and a lack of response from the competent authorities further to a specific request should, after a certain amount of time, be considered as tacit approval. Lastly, the Member States may appoint a national authority tasked with following up the correct application of the payment lead times by the public administrations.
In order to ensure that the implementation of the "Small Business Act" is followed up correctly, the Commission proposes that it be connected to the revised Lisbon strategy. It will call upon the Member States to include the SBA in their national reform plans and to devote a specific passage to it in their annual implementation reports. For its part, it will assess the implementation of the SBA in its annual report on the Lisbon strategy in order to allow the European Council to bring the matter up at its spring meetings and, if necessary, to lay down political objectives. The Commission will propose amendments to the SBA every two years.
European SMEs are not taking full advantage of the opportunities born of the integration of the national markets. Taking inspiration from the directive on services in the internal market, the Member States should create national contact points tasked with providing companies with any and all information necessary and assisting the SMEs through administrative procedures. In order to improve the access of SMEs to public contracts, the Commission has announced a voluntary code of conduct, to stimulate a change in the culture of the contracting authorities.
The Commission will increase its financial support to the involvement of SME associations in the European process of standardisation (one million euros in 2008, 2.1 million euros in 2009). It calls upon the standardisation bodies to make new standards available free of charge for five years, but is aware of the impact of such a measure on the economic structure of these bodies.
Amongst other things, it will continue its efforts to raise to 19%, instead of 15%, the involvement rate of SMEs from the very first year of the seventh framework programme for research and development. An action plan for 2008 has also been announced on the generalisation of electronic signatures. The
In order to boost entrepreneurship, a European SME week will be held in 2009 and cooperation between Member States in this field will be encouraged. This year, 750 young entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to acquire professional experience in another Member State under the initiative "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs". The Commission is also working on a regime via the Community Leonardo programme, aiming to promote the mobility of apprentices and people carrying out vocational training outside institutional circuits. The Member States are urged to encourage SMEs to be involved in programmes supported by the European Social Fund.
The Commission is seeking to open up the national markets of funding to enterprise. It will draft a regulation to facilitate cross-border venture capital investments. Furthermore, a working group including the national competent authorities will be set up to reduce the administrative obstacles limiting access of SMEs to support from the structural funds. In the field of microcredit, the Commission will contribute to the emergence of new microcredit institutions, establishing a specific fund with initial capital of forty million euros and managed by the European Investment Fund within the EIB group.
The "Small Business Act" will also provide support to SMEs in their process of internationalisation outside the borders of the European Union. "Business centres" will be created in third countries with high levels of economic growth, such as China and India, to help European SMEs to find new outlets.
Source: www.ec.europa.eu