The European Commission’s target to reduce administrative burdens on small businesses by 25% has been welcomed by business groups.
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) is pleased with the plan, but has warned that ‘good intentions need to become reality’ if any positive impact on business is to be achieved.
Earlier this week EU member state ministers met in Brussels to discuss the action plan on red tape, which was announced last month.
The Commission said that cutting bureaucracy by a quarter throughout the EU could increase GDP by €150bn.
The programme was said to ‘represent an important effort to streamline, modernise and make less burdensome the way in which policy objectives are implemented’.
However, Martin Smith, the FPB’s European spokesperson warned that previous efforts to cut red tape had been unsuccessful.
“The European Commission’s strategic review of better regulation showed that most simplification initiatives originally planned for 2005 and 2006 have still to be completed,” he said.
“Plus, in the work programme for 2007, the ‘simplification’ initiatives were a little dubious: for example, counting the end of pre-accession partnership agreements with Central and Eastern European states as a simplification. Obviously, that is a necessary tidying up exercise, but it is not going to make any businesses’ life easier.
“The work programme for 2007 is much shorter than in previous years and you can see Commission Directorates General thinking twice before legislating, so there is a chance this target will reinforce something that is already there.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
