Mr President, without any sense of parliamentary obligation, I shall begin by welcoming Peter Skinner and praise him for the quality and depth of his report which, in fact, obviates the need for me to make specific points on the subject, since he deals with them very well in his report. Ladies and gentlemen, Europe’s economic recovery, which is absolutely crucial to the Union’s achieving all its political objectives, must depend more on the quality of the policies themselves than on the result of favourable boosts that it receives through recovery in other economic areas. In Lisbon, in 2000, the Union defined the clear and crucial objective of making the European Union the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. Achieving this objective involves, on the one hand, taking full advantage of all the potential arising from the expansion of the information and knowledge-based society and from the liberalisation of some markets, specifically in the area of energy, and, on the other hand, the definition and implementation of public competition and competitiveness policies that create an environment that favours sustainable economic development. A Community-based Europe consists of an economy founded on a commercial framework in which private initiative is dominant and a culture of innovation and risk is an indisputable reality. This, therefore, requires the national authorities for political regulation and the appropriate Community institutions to promote and not to hinder all these efforts at innovation. The risk capital action plan drawn up at the Lisbon European Council, which called for its full implementation by 2003, is one of these instruments and certainly one of the most effective instruments available to us. It is, therefore, important that it is assessed and that its implementation is monitored, not only to record the progress that is made, but mainly to motivate all the relevant bodies in the Member States and to alert them to the need for the gradual and ongoing pursuit of a healthy entrepreneurial spirit underpinned by a culture in which risk is a factor that is permanently under control. The use of risk capital as an instrument to promote investment in new businesses and above all in sectors that face considerable uncertainty at the start of the production process must be stimulated and protected, because the enormous potential that risk capital creates and multiplies is not yet exhausted. Nevertheless, as the rapporteur quite rightly points out, this requires a set of measures for legislative harmonisation and the acceptance of policies for fiscal stimulation drawn up by every Member State, but also some suggested by the Union, which will enable us to break down existing barriers in the field of capital provision and, specifically, with regard to the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to this financing instrument. By accepting greater responsibility for the financing of risk capital through the European Investment Bank, Europe is demonstrating its desire to unequivocally shoulder its share of responsibility. Nevertheless, without precluding access to this form of financing by the high-technology sectors, we must strengthen and develop the appropriate political, economic and institutional framework for the full use of the instrument of risk capital for small and medium-sized enterprises. The role of the Commission and of Parliament becomes, in this context, absolutely essential and will certainly be decisive.

Political group: PSE