Traduction de «petites et moyennes » (Français → Anglais) :

‘micro, small and medium — sized enterprise’: a micro, small or medium — sized enterprise as defined in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises

39. Calls on the professional organisations of small businesses to deliver an opinion on the Charter's implementation at both national and European level; wants to see them more closely involved, both during the framing of policies and in all the decisions taken at Community level regarding small enterprises, by setting up standing working groups for this purpose; calls on the Member States and the Commission to ensure full and independent participation by the organisations representing all these enterprises in the European social dialogue as a whole; points out that through the Charter, the Commission, in cooperation with the Member ...[+++]States, could put together data on small and micro-businesses with particular reference to the needs of small businesses, including data on the productivity and efficiency of micro-businesses compared with medium-sized businesses, so as to make Community legislation more responsive to their requirements and better adapt its actions, programmes and policies, including through the identification of indicators to assess the impact on business activity;

3. Stresses that financial instruments to promote small and medium-sized business must be in line with the requirements of such businesses, in other words that they must be geared to the needs of SMEs in terms of transparent access to the relevant information, to straightforward application, authorisation and evaluation procedures and to the need for money at short notice – in particular it must possible for SMEs to find out at an earlier stage whether they have any realistic chance of obtaining support; notes that small firms which have the potential for support still too often make no progress because – owing to lack of time and staff ...[+++] – they are unable to access Community funds; points in this connection to the positive role played by the Euro-Info-Centres, which could be expanded still further;

(8) In order to eliminate differences that might give rise to distortions of competition, in order to facilitate coordination between different Community and national initiatives concerning small and medium-sized enterprises, and for reasons of administrative clarity and legal certainty, the definition of "small and medium-sized enterprises" used in this Regulation should be that laid down in Commission Recommendation 96/280/EC of 3 April 1996 concerning the definition of small and medium-sized enterprises(5). That definition was also used in the Community guidelines on State aid for small and medium-sized enterprises(6).

In the light of the Commission's considerable experience in applying those Articles to small and medium-sized enterprises and in the light of the general texts relating to small and medium-sized enterprises and to regional aid issued by the Commission on the basis of those provisions, it is appropriate, with a view to ensuring efficient supervision and simplifying administration without weakening Commission monitoring, that the Commission should make use of the powers conferred by Regulation (EC) No 994/98.

(3) The Commission has applied Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to small and medium-sized enterprises in and outside assisted areas in numerous decisions and has also stated its policy, most recently in the Community guidelines on State aid for small and medium-sized enterprises(3) and in the guidelines on national regional aid(4).