Liikanen to unveil enterprise blueprint

Date: 20/04/2000

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission will unveil proposals next week for a raft of measures to boost the competitiveness of both small and large enterprises.

In a draft report set to be approved by the full College next Wednesday (26 April), Enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen will stress the need to improve companies' access to finance, introduce simplified procedures for launching new products on the market, and establish a scoreboard to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of member states' innovation policies.

"Enterprises are confronted with the accelerating process of structural change, the emergence of the digital economy, intensifying competition and globalisation," states the draft report. "By enabling them to respond to these challenges, enterprise policy will help to achieve the growth, which will contribute to full employment and support social cohesion."

The proposals in Liikanen's paper are aimed in large part at helping high-tech firms in Europe which are struggling to catch up with their US counterparts, hampered by a shortage of skilled workers, a lack of proper start-up capital and loopholes in the regulations governing new inventions.

To ensure better protection of intellectual property rights while making it easier for firms to take advantage of the EU's single market, the Commission will call for reforms to the patent system to ensure it offers reliable protection "at an affordable price" to new companies as well as to existing firms. Liikanen will also demand better access to finance for entrepreneurs, whether through loans and guarantees, seed capital before they open their doors or venture capital during their first few years in business. This echoes goals already set out by Economics Commissioner Pedro Solbes.

Union governments are under mounting pressure to improve the climate for business to prevent a 'scientific brain drain' out of the EU before the first wave of central and eastern European countries joins the bloc, potentially competing with their counterparts already in the Union for precious capital and new markets.

A key element of the Commission's strategy for achieving this will be plans to set up a peer review system, possibly modelled along the lines of the existing internal market scoreboard. "This will be a very powerful tool in opening the door for further projects," said one official.

Lobby groups representing both small and large businesses in the EU said they would welcome any moves to improve economic and regulatory conditions for enterprises, but voiced scepticism as to whether the Commission would achieve much unless it followed up this month's paper with a detailed action plan.

"There are positive things in this proposal, but we have to wait until there are concrete programmes adopted," said Luc Hendrickx of Union's SME lobby group UEAPME.

The European Commission is due to unveil proposals for a raft of measures to boost the competitiveness of both small and large enterprises.