Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I, too, would like to congratulate our colleague, Mrs Elisabeth Montfort, on the quality of her report on the multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship for 2001-2005. She has studied the proposals with great care, and she has taken the trouble to consult with the many parties concerned. That approach has been an asset in defining and optimising the implementation of this programme. Here I want to stress some of the strengths we need to build on to improve Europe's contribution to business in the new ‘knowledge-based’ economy. How can we make a better contribution to Enterprise Europe, as President Prodi called it in a recent speech? First, every business must be included. Of course there are large businesses, involving several thousand people, say. We need to recognise not just what they contribute to the market economy, in terms of jobs and profit, but also their contribution to knowledge through their support for applied research and to the creation of hosts of businesses around them. Through their contacts with – often public – research laboratories they undoubtedly supplement public funding, which frequently needs supplementing, and enables discoveries to be made. So it is important to make sure our action here is positive. Turning now to SMIs/SMEs and micro-enterprises. As Mr Caudron said, these represent 98% of our economic fabric. Our greatest potential for adaptation resides in them. They are the true economic and innovation vanguard, in the front line and openly exposed to the risks inherent in this domain. We should take special care of them and make sure there are concrete measures which they can assimilate easily. Secondly, and without going through the measures set out in the report, which are, anyway, the result of an assessment made last year, you will note, all the same, that we are taking up the same old essential points: simplification of the assistance formalities, which are still too cumbersome, and even stifling for SMIs; help with finance and risk capital to ensure greater stability; aid for research into new technologies; establishment of a European standard through the BEST process; aid with communication and information. These businesses need buttressing within their geographic or technological environment. We must encourage them, promote local development using local resources, both material and human, and foster their relations with local communities. Here we should not only be helping businesses with a traditional structure, but also public-private partnerships and cooperatives which are increasingly contributing, among other things, to improving stability and creating jobs. Thirdly, we must look for European added value. This could involve, in particular, the installation of a European network, both physical and electronic, which every SMI can join, where they can find information, exchange knowledge through appropriate mechanisms with appropriate ethics, and benefit from the prime advantages the European Union decides to establish for their support. It seems clear to me that Brussels cannot run everything in this domain. We need operations in the field, regional delegations the Commission, Parliament or the Council can control, as the Majo report recognised just recently. Certain intervention issues must also be selected. They are easy to find: in the information society especially, in that sustainable development we hear so much about, in the fields of the environment, clean technologies, eco-technologies, new energy sources and new materials. The hallmark of this European aid network should be a number of centres, like the Euro Info Centres. For an SME/SMI, working with this European network would undoubtedly mean that, where synergies exists, it would not have to form a consortium with several other businesses in different Union countries, which often results in an artificial set-up with masses of paperwork and endless complications. I really hope the Commission will set up a working group on this topic, involving interested Members of Parliament. Fourthly, there are the proposals for the European research area we are beginning to construct. In parallel, we propose to introduce a European innovation area, and I am grateful to Mrs Montfort for having agreed to include that proposal in her report. We must take account of the results of and follow-up to the work of the Science and Governance Conference held last week in Brussels under the auspices of the Seville Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, because there is plenty of overlap with the subject we are dealing with today. Finally, I am sure it is time to create a proper parliamentary office for scientific and technological options assessment within the European Parliament, to assist in decisions and monitoring. These exist in the national parliaments and ours would match theirs. Our President, Mrs Fontaine, is asking us, because we are responsible for STOA, to send a message of support today to the EPTA, an organisation specialised in technological assessment in Europe, founded under the aegis of our colleague Mr Barón Crespo, which is meeting in Berlin on 10 November. But STOA is not really that kind of organisation and we have specific proposals to make on the subject. Mrs Montfort, our group will give your report its wholesale support.

Political group: Verts-ALE