Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-08-Speech-1-186"
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"en.20100308.19.1-186"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is about a project that Parliament has pursued for many years and that is now possibly being brought a step closer to success.
We wanted to free micro-entities – and here we are talking about companies that are particularly small, with few employees, minimum turnover and profit figures and which effectively only operate in a regional, local area, say a small baker or painter and decorator – from accounting obligations. In cooperation with the Council – the fourth directive, about which we are talking, and which has been amended several times – Parliament has repeatedly tried to implement this. The last attempt was within the framework of the report by Mrs van den Burg at the end of 2008. We did not manage to achieve this in negotiation with the Council at that time. The result was that in December 2008, Parliament passed a resolution, almost unanimously, in which it called on the Commission to get this possibility of freeing micro-entities off the ground from a legislative point of view. That is exactly what has happened in the meantime. The Commission has made the proposal and has thus done exactly what Parliament wanted. In addition, a committee convened by the European Commission – namely Mr Stoiber’s group, which is concerned with cutting bureaucracy – has also given its view on this problem and has said that this would be the key instrument to ease the burden on micro-entities in Europe. We are talking about possible savings to the tune of EUR 6.3 billion in total. At the same time, it should be remembered that micro-entities suffer from bureaucratic burdens to a particularly high degree.
This proposal by the Commission is, in a way, the flagship of the fight against red tape and the policy for fighting red tape in the European Union, and is therefore of rather central and major importance. There is a whole range of sensible reasons why this proposal is right. This directive we are now discussing dates from 1978. It was aimed at large and medium-sized businesses. It was never intended for micro-entities. The fact that micro-entities are subject to obligations by this directive, namely the drawing up of accounts, which, in terms of their structure and the elements they contain, are essentially the same as those required from large companies, completely overlooks what is actually necessary, as well as the needs of micro-entities. If such a micro-entity needs a loan, this balance has next to no value. I would go so far as to say that most of these micro-entities – and this is confirmed by the Commission’s research – do not understand their own accounts at all. I will stress again that the value is practically zero. What is important for the allocation of loans is the matter of cash flow. That is, for example, the matter of liquidity, the matter of reserves which can be activated. These are, however, all things which, in principle, cannot be deduced from a balance sheet in this form; this only portrays a snapshot and does not determine whether such a business deserves a loan or not.
It is also not a matter of competition, contrary to much of what was stated here by parts of the lobby. As a rule, these businesses do not compete in the single market, in cross-border activity. They only operate on a regional or local basis. That is why this problem is not of any relevance to the single market. Besides, the single market is not an end in itself. It is important and it is good that we have it. However, its rules should apply to the functioning of the single market, to cross-border trade, not issues that are only of concern internally to the national economy.
Against this background, we should now bring this never-ending story to a conclusion. We should adopt this report. That would pave the way for the Council to reconsider this matter and to possibly break up the existing qualified minority. That would be good for Europe’s smallest businesses."@en1
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