Brussels, 18/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - At the public debate on the competitiveness of European business, held in the framework of the Industry Council on Thursday, Member States mostly subscribed to the priorities set out by the European commission in its Communication and 2001/2005 work programme on the "enterprise policy faced with the inherent challenges facing a knowledge-based economy". The majority of ministers placed emphasis on the exercise of comparing the business policies in Member States, which will take place in June and July, focusing on a few indicators that could be directly exploited, given the very short time allowed for its realisation. This benchmarking operation accompanies the Commission's work programme and Communication on the spirit of enterprise, presented in the wake of the Lisbon Summit on a Europe of knowledge and innovation (see EUROPE of 28 April, p.9). The Council has instructed the Permanent Representatives to continue work on these papers so that the Industry Council of 5 December can vote and initial conclusions may be drawn at the European Summit in Spring 2001.
On the invitation of Council President, Victor Santos, ministers focused their interventions on three topics dealt with in the Commission's Communication:
1) The challenges of a Europe of Innovation and Knowledge: ministers took on board the priorities defined by the Lisbon Summit, placing emphasis on market liberalisation, training and research. The Danish and Finnish ministers placed emphasis on the role of competition to stimulate innovation, whilst Ireland and Britain placed stress on the model of taxation of capital that enables companies to have funding facilities, and most ministers pleaded in favour of innovative companies, the "start-up" companies, having rapid access to venture-capital. Even the Netherlands and the United Kingdom spoke in favour of forms of State aid for venture-capital.
Danish Minister Gjellerup presented a note insisting on strengthening links between research and business, in anticipation of the debates on the European 6th Research and Development Framework-Programme. "Although European research is of quality, we do not have sufficient industrial feed-back", stressed the Danish minister, followed by several delegations.
Ireland also stressed the role of investment into training in Europe, where "we are 1.2 million qualified people short". For his part, the Belgian minister placed emphasis on the creation of a European patent, tax on capital, and (with the Italian minister) on the simplification of legislation relating to SMEs. France and Belgium pleaded in favour of European competition policy conserving the European model, especially social and environmental.
2) Benchmarking and a performance scoreboard. Austrian Minister Martin Bartenstein presented the results of an exercise in comparison undertaken in eight EU countries, North America and Australia, on which the Commission's scoreboard could be based. These results confirm that administrative simplification is essential for the creation of companies: a) clearer forms; b) electronic treatment of documents; c) single counters, etc..
Some delegations wanted the analysis to look at elements like: the role of SMEs, essential according to Greek Minister Christodoukalis; regional policies (Belgian request). Swedish Minister, Mrs. Monkare, remarked that benchmarking had not to be a "beauty contest" and thus also include failures.
The Commission heard this message, the Commissioner for Industry, Erkki Liikanen, said at the end of the debate, assuring his audience that benchmarking would focus on a small number of criteria. "Today, we have taken the first step, but we still have a long way to go", he commented.
3) The approach retained in the 2001/2005 multi-annual programme to support the spirit of enterprise: all ministers backed the goals of the programme proposed by the Commission, with a majority of them wanting it to concentrate on small and medium-enterprises and for the number of projects to be limited so as to avoid "overdosing" aid. Spanish Minister, Anna Birules, and Italy's Mr. Letta placed emphasis on the programme playing in favour of access for small companies to information technologies. Dutch Minister Mrs. Jorrijsma Lebbink remarked that business policy should distinguish what comes within the Union and what lies in the hands of Member States. French State Secretary Christian Pierret stressed that France fully signed-up to the Commission's guidelines for the creation of a new legal and tax framework for companies. He announced that, in the autumn, the French Presidency would be organising two colloquia in entrepreneurship and innovation.