Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-19-Speech-1-226-000"
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"en.20121119.26.1-226-000"2
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Good evening, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks to Mr Becker and each of the speakers in this debate on what I believe to be a major topic, one on which we have been working for several months with my colleagues Mr Tajani and Mr Andor, in order to draw up a roadmap for social entrepreneurship. We know that it accounts for several percentage points of European GDP, through businesses in all their various forms across the 27 countries of the European Union, and several millions of jobs, and has a genuine capacity for innovation, commitment and investment.
I would also like to make reference to the work done on modernising the ‘Public Procurement’ directives. This is another instance of a regulatory framework that can help social entrepreneurship to expand rapidly if the rules you adopt, as I hope you will, make it easier to define public procurement in terms of social integration, innovation and environmental protection.
As you know, work on our proposals is now well under way, and I hope that, in the coming weeks, we will be able to reach agreement on the new, simpler, better-defined framework for public procurement.
However, these initiatives are not everything; there is still much for us to do. That is why my colleagues, Mr Tajani, Mr Andor and I wanted the Single Market Act II, the 12 new key proposals that we shall put on the table, to include a control switch to protect consumers and encourage innovation and social cohesion.
As part of the framework of the Single Market Act II, we shall work on innovative instruments to measure the impact of social enterprises. In parallel, we shall conduct a screening exercise and take a snapshot of what social enterprises, in all their diversity, mean in the 27 countries of the European Union. As regards the impact of social enterprises, we will therefore have the means of enhancing their reliability for investors; this is another project noted in Mr Becker’s report.
Beyond the regulatory framework, we must do everything we can in terms of financial facilitation, to enhance visibility, knowledge, the pooling of good practice among social enterprises in Europe, as you have requested, studies, registrations on University Erasmus programmes, training, better usage of European programmes. We are not working alone on this matter, and in Brussels and Strasbourg we also need to establish a wide-ranging platform for debate. We have already made a start with a major conference in which some of you participated in November 2011. We established a group of experts with whom Mr Becker was able to hold discussions last June. This is the first time that the Commission has been accompanied in its own debates and in the drafting of certain texts by a group of experts on social entrepreneurship. My colleagues and I intend to host a further major meeting on social entrepreneurship at the beginning of 2014 to draw up a balance sheet of everything done during the five years leading up to that date and to launch new initiatives.
I would be pleased if all of you who wish to do so could participate in this major meeting on social entrepreneurship and the social economy at the beginning of 2014.
Mr Becker, the report you are presenting is extremely important because it consolidates the approach we have been developing on many lines and initiatives. We shall continue with the same determination, the same tenacity.
First on finance, as you know, in October 2011, we proposed that social enterprises, the social economy, should be an investment priority in the next generation of structural funds for the period 2014-2020. This, of course, is a Commission proposal that will have to be approved by Council and Parliament.
I am also happy to say that the inclusion of social enterprises in our draft programme for social change and innovation received widespread support. It was adopted on 6 October last.
In December, we also modernised the package on state aids to Services of General Interest by adopting measures favourable to social enterprises when they supply a social service.
On private financing, Ms Regner; Mr Becker, you have supported the draft regulation on European Social Entrepreneurship Funds proposed by the Commission on 7 December last. Ms Regner, these are private funds, and although I proposed this new instrument, it was not in order to use public funds but so that when, and it does happen, private investors, people who have private funds, wish to invest in a field or in businesses, for example start-ups with a social aim, there is a means of collating the private funds and directing them towards a social economy goal. There is, therefore, no contradiction with all sorts of other initiatives that sometimes use public funds.
I hope we will be able to reach an agreement on the social enterprise fund; we are really on the correct road, and I hope we will be able to find a solution, including on tax havens; a solution, if everyone in the Council and Parliament is willing to compromise, then maybe that will be possible, provided that the compromise is a dynamic one.
Regarding the legal framework, beyond the financial issues, I am aware that Parliament is attached to the idea of a European statute for associations. I am as well, and I strike a note of caution here by noting that, in 1991, a previous Commission proposal was blocked in Council and was therefore withdrawn.
Ladies and gentlemen, since 8 February 2012, we have made progress on another matter close to my heart, namely the status of the European Foundation; this is an initial step forward on this matter, and I hope that further progress can be made. In any event, I have recently met all major stakeholders in European foundations in all their diversity who support our initiative."@en1
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