Mr President, my task today is to report on the deliberations on the Green Paper on entrepreneurship in Europe. There are actually three documents: the Green Paper itself, the Commission communication entitled ‘Thinking small in an enlarging Europe’ and the Commission report on the implementation of the European Charter for Small Enterprises. This House has confined itself to discussing the Green Paper, and I would like to begin by paying tribute to the Commission for presenting – with these three documents – an overview, appraisal and evaluation of the current debate about entrepreneurship and the promotion of business start-ups in the European Union. I would also, however, like to thank my fellow Members who ensured, during the deliberations, that the lead committee has presented to this House a comprehensive list of fifty points which gives the Commission a number of tasks to address, while also making it clear that we fully support the Commission’s basic line on this issue. The committee endorsed the draft report with the proposed amendments by a substantial majority of forty-one votes in favour and just four against, which shows that there is a broad consensus in Parliament on these issues. Commissioner Liikanen, what we want to do, on the basis of your Green Paper, is to support and undertake everything that helps to increase the number of self-employed persons in the European Union, encourages small businesses, and thus establishes conditions conducive to growth and innovation, especially in the services sector. This Green Paper rightly defines entrepreneurship and discusses why it is important for jobs and growth, for competitiveness, for the realisation of individual potential and for society as a whole. On this basis, we agree that we must improve the framework conditions. That includes measures in the field of research and development, and it also includes measures to alter the different attitudes towards starting a business and people’s willingness to assume risk. It is striking, Commissioner, that your Green Paper – and, indeed, every other assessment – makes it clear that the willingness to assume entrepreneurial risk and start a business is high in some European Union countries, although not as high as in some non-European states – with the exception of Ireland – but that in the majority of European states, it is well below the global average. It is also striking that your index naturally takes account of agriculture, while the international index used includes other criteria as well. It is also apparent that the European Union States with the highest level of public expenditure as a proportion of GDP, the most serious problems with unemployment and the greatest difficulties complying with the Stability and Growth Pact are also trailing well behind on business start-ups. So there must be a correlation between generous provision by the State, the social system, attitudes towards claiming state benefits, and the willingness to become self-employed. This is the starting point for our proposals, which I do not want to discuss in detail. You have all read them; there are fifty of them in total. We have achieved a broad consensus between the groups in this House, and Commissioner, we do not want this European Parliament report and the Green Paper to suffer the same fate as the Green Paper on trade, which was debated and then quietly disappeared before the appropriate action could be taken. I would like to thank all my fellow Members in particular as well as the Commission for the document, which was of extraordinarily high quality, which is not always the case. Nonetheless, Commissioner, you should not be tempted to extend this praise to industrial policy just yet, for in my capacity as my group’s rapporteur, I would like to conclude by commenting on the report by Mrs Zrihen. It is a very good report on industrial policy, but we do not agree on all points. There are widely divergent views, also within my group, on one key issue in particular, namely the future role of open coordination, and whether everything can be coordinated or whether in many areas it should be the Member States which take responsibility and fundamentally improve the framework conditions for business start-ups and industrial policy decisions. On that note, I would like to thank you for your attention. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE