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Brussels, 15th December
2009
The European Commission
reports good progress in the implementation of the
Small Business Act (SBA) in 2009. The consensus on
the SBA and the adoption of an Action plan to
better assist SMEs in coping with the economic and
financial crises has triggered impressive progress
on the EU level as well as in the Member States. A
broad range of measures have been taken to
implement the Leitmotiv of the SBA - the "Think
Small First" principle. (
see
MEMO/09/556 )
Vice-President
Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enterprise and
Industry, said: "We must
fully exploit the growth potential of European
SMEs to create a sufficient number of new and high
qualified jobs. Unlocking SME potential has been a
key political priority of this Commission.
Policies at all levels must encourage
entrepreneurial risk taking and provide for the
best possible framework conditions for SMEs.
"
The SBA, adopted in
2008, is an ambitious package of policies designed
to put SMEs' interests at the centre of
decision-making. At the height of the economic and
financial crisis, the SBA implementation in the
first year focussed delivery on the following
priorities:
-
Reducing
administrative burden for SMEs:
All new European legislation and legislation in
some Member States (e.g. Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, Germany) now passes through an "SME
test" to ensure that it is business friendly.
Unnecessary administrative burdens worth
billions of euro have been scrapped. (see also
MEMO/09/474
). The average time and cost of starting a
private limited company in the EU has been
reduced to 8 days and €417 respectively and
eighteen countries have established
one-stop-shops for company creation.
-
Access to finance:
Simplified EU state aid rules (through the
Global Block Exemption Regulation and the
temporary State aid framework) allowed Member
States to better help SMEs. Loans and overall
funding through the European Investment Bank and
Fund have increased to €11,5 billion in 2009.
Legislative proposals were tabled to better
tackle the problem of late payments of invoices.
Several governments have committed themselves to
paying their bills within 30 days or less.
Moreover, new rules are discussed under which
Member States would be free to exempt
micro-businesses from accounting rules thus
potentially saving them a further €6.7 billion.
-
Access to markets:
SMEs are already benefiting from a 40% reduction
in fees for EU trade mark rights and simplified
registration procedures. As a result of a
"European Code of Best Practices", access of
SMEs to public procurement has become easier and
more open in a number of countries. The
implementation of the services directive in all
Member States will facilitate the establishment
of businesses and cross-border provision of
services, while the proposed statute of a
European Private Company – when adopted - will
introduce common rules for starting up and
operating a business in any European country.
Access to standards has been made easier through
the publication of scopes of standards free of
charge.
-
Promoting entrepreneurship:
The role of entrepreneurship education in Member
States' education systems continued to increase.
The Commission initiative Erasmus for Young
Entrepreneurs has taken off.
Based on this
encouraging progress, the European Commission will
continue monitoring the implementation of the
Small Business Act at national level in 2010.
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/small-business-act/index_en.htm
-- Europa Press releases RAPID 15 December 2009 |
