EU – SMEs access to finance programmes for 2014-2020

On 7^th December, the Commission issued an EU Action Plan to improve access to finance for SMEs which presents the various EU policies and measures to make access to finance easier for Europe's 23 million SMEs.

It covers actions to improve the venture capital market and facilitate access to financial resources.

It contains also financial products to ease access to bank lending, for an amount of at least € 20 billion allocated to SMEs from the new Multiannual Financial Framework.

Among others:

• Together with this Action Plan, the Commission is presenting a new EU venture capital framework creating a genuine internal market for VC funds. The Commission invites the Parliament and the Council to adopt this legislative proposal by June 2012.

• By 2013 the Commission will review the General Block Exemption Regulation and a number of State aid guidelines, including on Risk Capital, to achieve Europe 2020 objectives and respond to SME needs.

• The Commission, consulting the European Banking Authority (EBA), will, within 24 months after the entry into force of the new CRD IV, implementing Basel III, report on lending to SMEs and natural persons. It will submit its report to the European Parliament and the Council, together with any appropriate proposal concerning the review of the SMEs' risk weight. In this context, the EBA is requested to analyse and report by 1 September 2012 on the current risk weights, testing the possibilities for a reduction, taking into consideration a scenario of a reduction by one third in relation to the current situation. Based on the report from EBA and its recommendations, the Commission will consider appropriate measures addressing the issue of SMEs risk weighting in the context of the CRD IV.

• The Commission will improve the monitoring of SME lending in order to better assess the impact of measures in support of SMEs' finance and the new capital requirements applicable to banks.

• The Commission will reinforce its loan guarantee and venture capital facilities under the Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and SMEs (COSME) (see related news item).

• Guarantees for loans will be extended to the expanding cultural and creative sectors and increased resources will also be available for microfinance, Additional financing for research- and innovation driven enterprises will be provided under Horizon 2020. All together these initiatives will amount to €3.5 billion.

• The European Investment Bank will maintain its SME loan activity at a sustained pace, close to the 2011 level and in line with its funding capacity. The volume of SME loans in 2011 is targeted to be around €10 billion.

• The Commission encourages Member States to accelerate the implementation of the Late Payments Directive in advance of the transposition deadline of March 2013. Late payments are costly for European businesses, amounting to some € 1.1 trillion in terms of delayed turnover.

Link to the document:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/finance/files/com-2011-870_en.pdf