Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-08-Speech-1-187"
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"en.20100308.19.1-187"2
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"Mr President, I would first of all like to give my thanks for and welcome the work of the two rapporteurs: Mr Lehne, Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, who has just spoken, and Mr Sterckx. I would like to remind you that, as Mr Lehne said, this proposal for a directive by the Commission is a response to the wishes of this House. Parliament’s resolution is dated 18 December 2008. It called on the Commission to present a legislative proposal to allow Member States to exclude micro-entities from the scope of the accounting directives.
Thirdly, contrary to what may have been said, this proposal does not necessarily involve completely exempting micro-entities of all accounting requirements. I know that concerns were expressed about that in certain Member States. The compromise proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs is quite clear on that point. These businesses will have to keep supporting documents clearly showing transactions carried out and their own financial situation.
To conclude these introductory words, and before I listen to what you have to say, I wish to personally encourage this House to support this proposal. The parties involved are awaiting this decision and I think that a strong signal from Parliament is now necessary in order to move forward on this issue. We are all in favour of simplification. I think that this proposal, of which the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs is a fervent supporter, is an example of such simplification and I hope that micro-entities will soon be able to benefit from the savings expected from this proposal.
At the same time, the High Level Group of Independent Stakeholders on Administrative Burden Reduction, chaired by Mr Stoiber, came out clearly in favour of the proposal, as Mr Lehne said a moment ago.
Finally, the European Economic and Social Committee gave its support to this proposal to simplify accounting procedures. So, here we are.
Why is this measure important? By creating a single reporting system, this proposal should allow Member States to homogenise the reporting requirements for all micro-entities and make them more consistent. This new approach should allow a substantial reduction in the costs borne by these entities.
Mr Lehne, you spoke of several billion euros. Personally, I have the figure given to me by my staff, who estimate the savings to be a maximum of EUR 6.3 billion. Even if this figure were lower, that would, in my eyes, justify going ahead with the debate on this issue in order to encourage the activities of European micro-entities. That is another reason why I am calling for the proposal on micro-entities to be adopted quickly.
If we had to include this proposal within the more general framework of the review of the accounting directives, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs wanted, that would certainly take longer. It could even be several years before these provisions were applicable.
Right now, ladies and gentlemen, I hear criticisms, remarks and propositions from both sides and I would like to try to respond to or reassure you on three specific points.
Firstly, what the proposal does is give Member States an option that they may or may not choose to exercise. In other words, any Member States that so wish can keep the current rules without having to modify their own national regulations.
Secondly, I wish to stress that this proposal is aimed at simplification and subsidiarity. In order for members of the public and businesses to understand and take advantage of the domestic market, we must not impose rules at European level unless absolutely necessary. I think that, in the specific case of micro-entities, the current rules could appear excessive."@en1
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