Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-15-Speech-3-332"
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"en.19991215.12.3-332"2
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"I would like to compliment and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, and the committee, on the work they have done on this. Although we are a small House tonight this is a terribly important subject. It cannot be said too often that small businesses do not have deep pockets and so have greater difficulty riding out cash-flow crises than bigger ones. They often have to wait for money to come in before paying their own suppliers. If payments are delayed it has a knock-on effect. Sometimes they are dependent on one large customer. If this client delays or defaults on payments, that can mean the equivalent of a whole month's work lost, with potentially catastrophic effects. Worse still there is often no real redress. Though there is a statutory right, for example in the United Kingdom, to impose interest on late payments, there is practically no way to enforce this and court action is impractical to recover small debts. We need to have some form of enforcement machinery. There is also the difficulty of different payment terms across the European Union – 30 days in some places, 90 in others. The compromise of 60 days seems to me a sensible arrangement.
It is grand that the Commission has put its shoulder behind the wheel of speeding up commercial payments but it is far from the case that the Commission is beyond reproach itself. The Ombudsman’s report highlighted many instances of late payments to suppliers by the Commission. This point was addressed in the communication from Commissioner Liikanen and another concerning time limits. I am glad that the Commission is seeking to improve its own procedures to reduce late payments as I would like to see it put its house in order. I had a letter from a distinguished academic the other day pointing out that persons coming to give reports are often kept waiting for their expenses money for several months. This is unacceptable. We must make sure that the Commission does as well as it expects others to do."@en1
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