Brussels, 30/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - At a conference organised by the Irish Presidency and the European Commission (DG Enterprise) celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Small Business Charter, the Secretary General of UEAPME (European Union of Craft and SMEs), Hans-Werner Müller, called for a more binding legal framework for the Charter, to force governments to do more for small businesses and demonstrate that European politicians really support small businesses.
According to the UEAPME, to improve implementation of the Charter, common assessment criteria are needed to draw up a unified table of progress. It is therefore calling for an impact indicator to be established to highlight applications of the Charter and it wants the Commission to propose a multi-annual action plan with of measures implementing the Charter. Such an action plan would allow more concrete measures to be taken and provide genuine benchmarking.