Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-12-Speech-3-518-000"
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"en.20120912.27.3-518-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aims of these two funds – helping small businesses and social entrepreneurship – are certainly important and worthy of our support.
I am very familiar with the second of these areas, as I have often been involved with disability associations, and my position as vice-chair of the Disability Intergroup in this Parliament has led me to listen to a large number of proposals and demands in this field. Thousands of bodies operate in this sector and help produce roughly 10% of GDP across Europe, while providing jobs for over 11 million people. As we must all realise, these are significant figures that have not only a valuable social impact but also major consequences for Europe’s entire economy.
Even more than other kinds of business, social undertakings always find it difficult to obtain credit, perhaps because it is thought – unfairly – that they cannot give sufficient assurances. In fact, though, they are often highly efficient and economically competitive. Nevertheless, it is important to remain extremely vigilant and to check carefully that these instruments are used only where there is a genuine need. Even in this field there can be speculation and interests that deviate from the real objectives for which these funds have been developed.
In this respect, the criteria for allocating these funds should be made much clearer, as I would not like to see them transformed into a potential new mechanism for fraud, at the expense of both Europe and the social undertakings themselves, not to mention all those people, including people with disabilities, who have considerable opportunities in this sector and expect a lot from it.
In the past, grants from the European Social Fund, for example, were used in Italy for completely different purposes from those that were initially proposed. It is absolutely disgraceful that there are people who speculate in this sector instead of helping others who have major difficulties.
To conclude, I reiterate my support for these initiatives, provided due attention is given to ensuring they are properly implemented."@en1
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