Small firms seek to ease their way into the market

Date: 16/01/1997

By Michael Mann

REPRESENTATIVES of the EU's small businesses are calling on the Commission to redouble its efforts to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get access to finance.

In a new submission to the Directorate-General responsible for small and medium-sized enterprises (DGXXIII), the two major SME groups pick out five priorities for the EU's next multi-annual funding programme.

UEAPME and EUROPMI want new initiatives to improve relations between their members and lending institutions. Lack of access to reliable loans has long been the greatest single complaint of a sector supposedly picked out by the Union for special treatment.

Their latest initiative comes in advance of a meeting tomorrow (17 January) of the so-called Article 4 committee, at which Commission and member state officials will decide how to divide up the 127 million ecu set aside for the 1997-2000 SME support programme.

In the five areas selected for special attention, the two groups stress the need for improved integration of SMEs into the single market, a better business environment, enhanced vocational training and economic conditions, and wider ranging transnational cooperation.

“We are underlining access to finance, the removal of red tape, technical assistance and education,” said UEAPME's Garry Parker.

With so much policy effort still being aimed at the small business community, representatives of the sector are at pains to improve their members' knowledge of the opportunities on offer through various EU programmes.

Improved education can, they believe, alert both entrepreneurs and decision-makers to the availability of structural funding, and ease companies' adjustment to single market conditions.

Funding for the multi-annual programme was raised to 127 million ecu at a meeting of EU industry ministers in November last year, after a powerful group of countries blocked Commission plans to increase the budget to 180 million.

Commission President Jacques Santer attempted to write in the extra money as part of his 'confidence pact' for employment. In the end, a group of member states pegged spending at 127 million, claiming they could do a better job at national level and did not wish to increase financing in an era of budgetary austerity.

In an attempt to strengthen their voice in the Union, UEAPME and EUROPMI decided to merge their secretariats with effect from 1 January. Germany's Hans-Werner Müller will act as secretary-general, assisted by EUROPMI's Blando Palmieri.