Kristin Schreiber, director of the SME unit in the European Commission's DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG Grow), explained, in light of the SME strategy, that her institution's aim was to have “the broadest possible definition” of SMEs during an exchange with MEPs from the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) on Tuesday 18 February.
“What is important from our perspective is that any SME definition that we have should be applicable to as many as possible SMEs and we don’t want to have legislation which is based on exclusion for SMEs”, explained the senior official, responding to far-right MEP Andrea Caroppo (ID, Italy), who called for better consideration to be given to microenterprises.
The Director noted that the situation concerning microenterprises was already included in the definition of SMEs. However, she seemed to imagine possible clauses in the legislation that would not apply to SMEs, for example, pertaining to certain accounting requirements.
But legislation that would as a matter of principle exclude SMEs would not be very meaningful, she continued, given that the very very large number of our European companies are SMEs. This is why the Commission wants to apply the 'Think Small First' principle, she stressed, to ensure that basically all legislation is fit for SMEs because “by definition, if an SME can comply with it a larger company would be able as well”.
The question of the definition of SMEs resurfaces within discussions with the preparation of the SME strategy, which should be presented by 10 March (a provisional version of which has previously been detailed by us - see EUROPE 12420/6).
By way of reminder, in 2018, the European Parliament had proposed a specific definition for mid-cap companies (see EUROPE 12055/13) in a broad consultation launched by the former Commissioner for the Internal Market and Industry, Elżbieta Bieńkowska (see EUROPE 11956/28). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)