Brussels, 09/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - In an opinion adopted during the plenary session on Wednesday 8 July, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) highlighted the need to facilitate Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises' (SMEs) access to financing.
The opinion in question focuses on the European Commission's Green Paper published in February 2015 on the construction of a Capitals Market Union, whose aim is to create a single capitals market that provides financing flows and, in the long term, the ability to reabsorb asymmetrical shocks that occur in the EU. The rapporteur on the draft opinion and Mayor of Bialystok, Tadeusz Truskolaski (Polish Civic Platform) explained: “The building of a Capital Markets Union should above all support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and may help safeguarding the interests of local communities, which will be obliged to seek new sources of finance for development, on various markets”. During his speech, Truskolaski also criticised the vagueness of the Commission's objectives.
The report is therefore calling for “the strengthening of SMEs' potential by recognising their local role in the promotion of entrepreneurship and creating innovation”. It also calls for the introduction of a legal framework to help “large-scale, long-term investment projects” irrespective of short-term quotas. In this perspective, the rapporteur underlines the need to tackle “structural factors”, particularly the lack of knowledge and financial culture among individual investors and small entrepreneurs. He is calling for more commitment from the public sector “in the domains that directly contribute to the expansion of the capitals market and where the private sector is lacking”. Emphasis is also put on legislative harmonisation and introduction of “comparative and available data on financing risks” in an effort to introduce a transparent framework and subsequently, a climate in which investor confidence thrives.
On 9 July, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Capitals Market Union. Last June, the Council produced its conclusions. The Commission will now have to present its final action plan in September. (Pascal Hansens)