Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-26-Speech-4-112"
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"en.20001026.4.4-112"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after eleven years in this House, I can bear witness to the fact that debates on small and medium-sized businesses in our Parliament are neither new nor rare.
It has to be said that on the basis of European Union criteria, over 99% of companies could be defined as SMEs, which is not very sensible. That very fact illustrates the European vagueness of the concept and explains many uncertainties. Bear in mind that the first Community action programme in this area was adopted in 1983, seventeen years ago.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Montfort, has done excellent work over the last few weeks, in-depth work in close collaboration with all her colleagues. She has identified the points where there was a lack of clarity or significant slippage between statements and reality in the Commission’s text. Her work, in which we have assisted, has consisted of pinpointing issues and trying to establish a more precise classification of the different types of SME, micro-enterprises and craft businesses. And, along those lines, we too have tabled and pressed for a series of strong, concrete proposals for moving from words to deeds, in relation to SMEs, by giving them access to innovation and electronic commerce, simplifying certain customs formalities for them, ending certain disparities in administration and regulations, developing – and this is important – access to risk capital, developing the Euro Info Centres to broaden the scope of business information and support, and making the framework programme for research and technological development more open to innovative SMEs.
As far as I and my friends are concerned, we have sought to put the accent on crafts and micro-enterprises. I have asked for environmental and sustainable development targets to be properly taken into consideration, and for access of SMEs to new communications and information technologies to be promoted. I have also asked that actions geared to specific groups like women, young people and the social economy sectors be encouraged, not forgetting employee participation in the life of these SMEs in general.
SMEs are the major source of job creation, in terms of both quality and quantity, and they play a crucial role in social cohesion and regional planning. That is why it is very urgent to remove the many obstacles to their development and organise the necessary training.
So, Mrs Montfort, I hope a massive vote for your report will finally allow us to make a qualitative leap forward in this area, and also that certain excessively liberal amendments will be rejected, for instance, on reducing the number of promotional programmes and on creating a new monitoring centre.
If I had to sum it up in a nutshell, Mr President, I would say that what we need here– and if I say so myself – is less ideology and more action."@en1
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