14/05/2013

FAES Foundation has organised on Tuesday 14, the working breakfast ‘European Digital Single Market: entrepreneurs and SMEs’, with the participation of the Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, Jose Manuel Soria and the Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani.The MEP and member of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, Pablo Arias, and the Secretary-General of FAES, Javier Zarzalejos, introduced the breakfast.

In his speech, Minister Soria stressed the importance of having included in the October agenda of the European Council the idea of a united digital market. An initiative which, he said, “the Ministry of Industry unequivocally supports in an attempt to regain Europe’s lost ground compared to America and Asia in this area”. “We all share the need for more and better Europe, but it will not be easy to achieve if the European institutions are not convinced that the road to competitiveness cannot be making European companies incur in restrictions and obligations that are not demanded to firms in those economies with which we are called to compete".

In this sense, Soria has highlighted the efforts of the Commission to promote a strategy for industrial redevelopment in Europe “based on less distortion, less barriers, more regulatory clarity and more competitiveness tests, a strategy that has the full support of the Government of Spain”.

The Vice-President of the Commission, Antonio Tajani, said that “if there is no strong Spain, no strong Italy, no strong France, no strong Portugal, we cannot work for more Europe or for a more industrial strategy which may add growth to the sacrifices”. “Our ambition is to accelerate the transformation of the European business landscape exploiting novel digital technologies” Tajani said, who also added that “we have a strong spirit of European collaboration to establish a long term vision on how to turn Europe into a vivid and thriving business and digital market and help boost the economy and reduce youth unemployment across the Union”.

ADAPTING SMEs

For MEP Pablo Arias “adapting our digital market to SMEs is essential, as they are the basis of our economy, and provide them with tax advantages that encourage the use of the Internet, to encourage innovation and facilitate a lighter development of these initiatives”. In his view, “the exit from the crisis has a digital format”.

The Secretary-General of FAES, Javier Zarzalejos, added that it is necessary to “move forward in the development of the European Digital Single Market from the realisation that there are still too many barriers hindering the free flow of on-line services across national borders”. “Adapting the market to the new technological revolution is essential to put Europe at the leading position it deserves,” he said. Zarzalejos recalled that FAES “has developed a very dedicated and defined line of work to analyse all the implications of this commitment to smart growth and digital impact”.

 Secretaría de Estado de Cooperación Internacional y para Iberoamérica