Brussels, 10/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 7 April in Helsinki a delegation of Eurochambres, headed by its President Pierre Simon and Secretary General Arnaldo Abruzzini, presented the Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen with its expectations of the Finnish Presidency in the second half of 2006. Innovation and Enterprise has to be one of the priorities, indicated Mr Simon, who also asked for the commitments made at the Spring Summit to be put into practice: the setting up of one-stop shops for companies and measures for facilitating the creation of start-ups. Eurochambres considers it essential to implement national reform programmes; help ensure that the 7th Framework Programme and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme are both well-funded for the 2007-13 period and made accessible for SMEs; negotiate a services directive that ensures an opening up of the services market, with economic and legal certainty; develop a long term energy strategy and make energy efficiency a priority; completion of the internal gas and electricity market; the Presidency to be a key driver in accession negotiations with Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey.
Kari Jalas (Finnish Chamber of Commerce) indicated that Finland was going to ratify the European Constitution before the beginning of the Finnish Presidency. (For further details see “Preparing Europe's Come-Back”: http://www.eurochambres.be ).