Quote of the Week: It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep,
not to skin them - Tiberius Caesar
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ESBA WEEKLY of Friday 30 March 2001 - VOL 3 - N° 17
Headlines of WEEK 13:
- SME CHARTER: Report confirms lack of progress in business environment
- STOCKHOLM SUMMIT: Member States ready to foster entrepreneurship ?
- FINANCE: New capital adequacy framework & SME finance
- ENVIRONMENT: Consultation paper on sustainable development
- TAXATION & FINANCE: Tobin tax discussions
- R&D and EMPLOYMENT: higher R&D levels in US; high-tech more jobs
- EDUCATION & ICT: Commission adopts eLearning action plan
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EU / SME CHARTER
Brussels 26/03/2001: Lack of progress in business environment
The European Charter for small enterprises, adopted in June 2000, called
on the EU to undertake action to support and encourage small enterprises.
The annual progress submitted by the Commission to the Spring Summit of
last weekend gives a very brief summary of the progress made so far. The
overall impression of the report is that progress has been made, but the
EU, especially the Member States, need to speed up the pace of reform for
entrepreneurship in Europe.
Clear improvements in key areas such as the business environment,
education and entrepreneurship, taxation, and financial matters will only
happen if Member States also implement its commitments made in the field
of entrepreneurship over the past few years. The report can be found
under:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/stockholm_council/pdf/ecse_en.pdf
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EU / STOCKHOLM SUMMIT
Stockholm 26/03/2001: Are Member States ready to foster entrepreneurship ?
ESBA calls for a more ambitious and focused programme for entrepreneurship
to be set up. Although, the Stockholm Summit shows that important progress
has been made over the last year to achieve the strategic goal as set in
Lisbon, and new agreements have been concluded during the Summit, ESBA
considers the current efforts by the EU Member States insufficient.
Entrepreneurship was not a priority during the Summit, although the
progress report on the European Charter for SMEs called for the need for
real progress: The Summit conclusions argue only that "the public sector
should increase efficiency and reduce red tape in order to enhance the
productive and innovative capacity of our economies".
Therefore, in order for Europe to become more entrepreneurial and
competitive, ESBA stresses the need to transform the European Charter for
small enterprises into real actions. So far most of the Charter's
objectives did not improve the life of small enterprises in the Member
States. ESBA hopes that its recently published MILLENNIUM DECLARATION
(http://www.esba-europe.org), containing its vision, appreciation of the
present situation as well as proposals for improvement of the
entrepreneurs environment, will contribute to make the reforms much more
concrete.
A summary of this article was published in the Bulleting Quotidien Europe
of Agence Europe, Thursday 29 March 2001.
The main results of the Spring Council Meeting in Stockholm are as
follows:
- COMPETITION: State aid to be reduced by 2003, the need to redirect aid
towards horizontal objectives, an online state aid register (done) as well
as a scoreboard which should clarify how state aid rules will be applied
to measures designed to promote risk capital to improve the financial
environment for SMEs;
- FINANCE: Agreement on the Lamfallussy report to create a EU market for
financial services and risk capital;
- TRADE: EU wants to agree on a new WTO negotiation in November (the
informal meeting of twenty key countries (not USA) on 27 March indicated
that momentum for a new Trade Round is growing).
- EDUCATION & TRAINING: Focus on education, training and skills via open
method of coordination;
- SINGLE MARKET: Confirmation of the newly proposed Commission strategy on
services;
- SINGLE MARKET: Confirmation of Commission initiatives on European labour
markets;
- SOCIAL: Progress requested to improve quality in work, including
updating existing legislation on equal treatment between men and women,
promote social inclusion, corporate social responsibility (green paper),
the role of the social partners in managing change, and provide safe and
sustainable protection systems (pensions);
- TECHNOLOGY: Legislation to be adopted before the end of the year on
distance financial marketing of financial services, and application of VAT
to E-commerce;
- RESEARCH: Need to take into account the needs of SMEs in the 6th
research framework programme and to present the first Innovation
Scoreboard in June 2001.
- ENVIRONMENT: Sustainable development will be integrated in Lisbon
strategy;
However, less positive developments were amongst others:
- EMPLOYMENT: Nothing was mentioned on the crucial contribution of SMEs;
- SINGLE MARKET: No agreement on date for liberalisation of gas and
electricity markets;
- TAXATION: No new developments;
- RESEARCH: Failure to introduce a single Community patent;
- ENTREPRENEURSHIP: References were made in two paragraphs to the European
employment strategy, national action plans, the multiannual programme for
enterprise and entrepreneurship, the charter for small enterprises, micro
credits, exchanges of best practices, benchmarking, regulatory
simplification, impact assessments and the use of quantitative targets in
enterprise policy.
The full conclusions can be found under:
http://www.eu2001.se/static/eng/stockholm_summit/conclusions.asp
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EU / FINANCE
Brussels 26/03/2001: New capital adequacy framework & SME finance
DG Enterprise of the European Commission invited European SMEs
organisations to participate in a consultation meeting on the capital
adequacy framework. This consultation was organised following a new
proposal by the Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for
International Settlements (known as the Basel Committee) to introduce a
similar framework for banks at the international level. Debates during
this meeting have clearly demonstrated that the potential impact for
European SMEs has not been clearly assessed. Several comments, including
comments by representative of SMEs banks, even warned that the current
proposal is likely to create a situation where bank credit for most
European SMEs would be more expensive after the implementation of such a
new capital adequacy framework or that a credit crunch may occur, putting
the life of existing enterprises at stake as well as preventing new
entrepreneurs from starting new businesses.
DURING THIS MEETING, ESBA AS WELL AS THE OTHER SME EUROPEAN ORGANISATIONS
ASKED FOR A PROPER IMPACT ASSESSMENT TO BE ORGANISED ON THIS ISSUE AS SOON
AS POSSIBLE AND TO EXTEND THE CONSULTATIVE PROCES BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER
2001.
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EU / ENVIRONMENT
Brussels 27/03/2001: Consultation paper on sustainable development
The Commission has issued a consultation paper on sustainable development
identifying trends and a policy toolkit for tackling these problems.
However, no specific objectives and measures are set as these will be
included in the upcoming Commission's proposal for a sustainable
development strategy (June), based among others on comments from industry
and civil society (deadline: 30 April). A hearing to discuss this paper
will be held on 26 and 27 of April in Brussels. The consultation paper and
further information can be found under:
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/eussd/index.htm
ESBA BRUSSELS ASKS ALL SMES WITH EXPERTISE AND AN INTEREST IN THIS FIELD
TO CONTACT ITS OFFICE TO COME TO EFFICIENT CONSULTATION EFFORTS.
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EU / TAXATION & FINANCE
Brussels 27/03/2001: Tobin tax discussions
The Banking Federation of the European Union has warned against the
introduction of the Tobin-tax to stabilise international financial markets
(a levy on international currency transactions, based on an idea of James
Tobin in 1978). The Swedish and the coming Belgian EU Presidency announced
their intention to discuss the issue and a debate on the issue has already
started in France and Sweden as well as among several MEPs. The European
Commission, USA, Japan, Switzerland and Australia seem to oppose the idea.
For further information: http://www.fbe.be/pdf/av0232e.pdf
ESBA THINKS THAT IT IS IMPORTANT FOR EUROPEAN SMES TO BE ACTIVE IN SUCH A
DEBATE AS IT ADDRESSES THE ISSUE OF FINANCIAL STABILITY WHICH IS IMPORTANT
FOR SUSTAINABLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP. IF TAXING IS NOT THE WAY FORWARD,
OPPONENTS, SUCH AS BANKING FEDERATIONS, MAY AT LEAST PROPOSE CONCRETE
STEPS TO ENSURE THAT FINANCIAL SPECULATION WILL NOT BECOME DETRIMENTAL TO
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EUROPE AND BEYOND.
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EU / RESEARCH & EMPLOYMENT
Luxembourg 27/03/2001: higher R&D levels in US; high-tech more jobs
Eurostat issued research results on the R&D levels in the EU and third
countries, showing that "the average EU's R&D efforts are significantly
below the level reached by Japan and the US". In Japan and the US, the
business sector accounted also for a higher proportion of R&D expenditure
than the EU. Within the EU, Germany, France, Italy and the UK accounted
for almost 75% of total EU R&D expenditure in 1998.
Other results showed that employment grew faster in high-tech industries
and knowledge-intensive services. Between 1995 and 1999, employment in
high-tech industries in the EU grew by an annual average of 0.9%, compared
to 0.3% for total manufacturing. Jobs in knowledge-intensive services grew
by an 2.9% average a year, compared to 1.8% for the service sector as a
whole. In 1999, about four jobs out of ten in EU manufacturing were
provided by high-tech industries and about one job out of two in the
service sector was provided by knowledge-intensive services.
More detailed information:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/datashop/print-product/EN?catalo
gue=Eurostat&product=9-21032001-EN-AP-EN&mode=download
(copy/paste full link)
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EU / EDUCATION & ICT
Brussels 28/03/2001: Commission adopts eLearning action plan
The goal of the action plan, complementing eEurope 2002, is to combine
lifelong education and new ICTs. The main objectives of the eLearning
action plan are:
- Creation of an information base containing ICT indicators for teaching
purposes;
- Creation of a platform to exploit the potential of new technology
applications to provide a remedy where conventional education fails;
- Encouragement of infrastructure development in less-favoured regions;
- Inclusion of "digital literacy" in the new basic skills (e.g. entrepreneurship)
- Maximising teachers' potential through training, best practices and analysing the in the future required skills;
- New educational and training services (networked learning, virtual mobility);
To reach the objectives set, the Commission will make use of all relevant instruments and policies available, such as the education and training programmes (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci); the framework programme for research and development (e.g. IST); the programmes and actions on technology deployment and competitiveness (e.g. GoDigital) and the structural funds.
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The ESBA Weekly is now sent to an increasing amount of persons with a
direct interest in SMEs.
This bulletin is made in cooperation with LOGOS (http://www.logos-eu.com).
