Brussels, 26/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 February, the European Commission adopted a proposal allowing member states to exempt very small companies from the requirements of directive 78/660/EEC on annual accounts of capital companies (see EUROPE 9846). This would affect micro-enterprises which have at least two of the following categories, having: - a turnover of less than €1 million; - a balance sheet total of less than €500,000; - fewer than 10 employees. According to the Commission, more than five million companies, such as butchers of computing firms, could gain exemption, saving €6.3 billion if every member state took advantage of the possibility offered them. At the moment, Germany, which argued strongly for the proposal, and the United Kingdom seem to support such a measure, while France and Belgium are expected to oppose it. A public consultation exercise on the review of the 4th and 7th accounting directives will be open until the end of April.
The European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME) has criticised what it calls a “questionable proposal” which will reduce transparency, create an uneven playing field for companies in different member states and will not necessarily result in reductions in cost, with national administrations, banks, suppliers etc, continuing to require the data for their activities. According to the UEAPME, the issue “was obviously not contemplated in the impact assessment study”, which is mainly based on “hypothetical savings” that did not consider the bigger picture. The European Federation of Accountants and Auditors (EFAA) has slammed a proposal which is “a step backwards for harmonisation of accounting rules in Europe and further complicates the business environment”. It is very unhappy that the Commission failed to present a solid impact study and launch a genuine consultation exercise before this legislative initiative which “appears to ignore the needs of the millions of SMEs within the Community”. SMEs “have little interest in measures based on dubious savings figures produced to back up popular political sound-bites having no consideration of real business,” the EFAA said. (M.B./transl.rt)