Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Montfort on her report and also thank her for the very good cooperation which we have enjoyed. It really has been fun. Where the economy is concerned, Europe's aim is of course to become the number one in the world and the multiannual programme can make a contribution to achieving this. However, what is particularly important in this sector is that we promote a spirit of enterprise in society and that young people give more serious consideration to starting their own business or to going into smaller companies. To do this we need to be active in the context of education in particular. Until recently, after completing their studies and training, many young people made a choice between going into the civil service or simply into larger companies which are similar to the state. Here we need to bring about a sea of change. But we also sense that this is already happening - many young people are in fact also founding new start-up companies, and we should encourage this entrepreneurial spirit. But I have three specific comments on this programme. Firstly, the Commission is saying that in the future it will promote and define policies which are enterprise-friendly. To this end it wishes to introduce a benchmarking exercise, which is certainly an interesting initiative. We must, however, ensure that it is effective. At present the plan is that this exercise will be run by the EU and the Member States, which will certainly not give an accurate picture. If I take my native country, Germany, then one single set of statistics for Germany does not reflect the situation in the regions. There are huge variations between, say, Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Or take Greater London and Scotland. Greater differentiation ought to be possible here; the regions need to be involved if we are to get an accurate picture of the impact of enterprise-friendly policies. Secondly, the Commission is considering taking more of a back-seat role in supporting SMEs. This is certainly also a debatable step. The success of assistance to small and medium-sized businesses should actually be measured on how effective it is, and that is why the question certainly does arise as to what extent it is possible to provide this assistance in this form at European level. But if assistance is withdrawn at European level then the regions need once again to be given increased opportunities to act. In this context the de minimis rule should, in any case, be re-examined and the group exemption regulation for SMEs should be revised. My third point concerns traditional companies and e-commerce. We always draw a distinction between the new economy and the old economy. Where I live in Bavaria there is one business, a carpenter, who now derives 70% of his turnover from the Internet. Is that the old or the new economy? I think that we should merge these two sectors to make the normal, traditional sector of the economy also part of the new economy. I have two requests of the Commissioner here: the first is for the Commission to support the development of software intended specifically for SMEs, which in terms of size and cost would be suitable for use by the SME sector. The second is for DG Enterprise, which was formed by merging the industry and SMEs portfolios, to champion SME-related issues with more vigour and to assume a watchdog function in the whole Commission for SME matters; it should scrutinise all the Commission's legislative acts and communications for their effect on SME-related issues. Finally, I also hope that the assistance programmes which the Commission offers to SMEs in the future are presented in such a way that they are considered from the customer's point of view, so that SMEs can always understand their purpose. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE