BusinessEurope strongly supports the European Commission’s proposal to allocate €1.4 billion to financial instruments in the future programme on competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs (COSME) 2014-2020 ⁽¹⁾. The equity facility and loan guarantee facility will be particularly useful given the organisation’s doubts about the ability of the financial sector to finance recovery in the years ahead. It therefore recommends an increase in the budget heading for these two instruments within the overall programme budget.

The European federation of private employers has written to Commissioner Antonio Tajani to give its views on the communication published by DG Enterprise and Industry. It would like to see mezzanine finance made more attractive and regrets that the loan guarantee facility covers loans only up to €150,000. It suggests that SMEs be allowed to combine regional, national and EU guarantee instruments.

When the Commission proposes to improve framework conditions for competitiveness – for example by reducing to three days, by 2020, the time it takes to set up a new SME – BusinessEurope finds that it fails to take into account the increase in regulations and their complexity.

BusinessEurope also comments in its letter on the recent communication ⁽²⁾ on helping SMEs seize global opportunities. The organisation supports the Commission’s objectives and suggests, given the effectiveness of trade fairs in facilitating SME internationalisation, that the Commission explore the possibility of setting up an EU fund to finance innovative multilateral trade promotion activities.