Robust competition policy needed to ensure level playing field for SMEs
SME Circle’s New Year’s Reception on Competition Policy’s effects on SMEs
Small and medium-sized business need a coherent EU competition policy framework to ensure fair taxation. This was the conclusion drawn at today’s SME Circle’s New Year’s Reception. On the occasion of tomorrow’s adoption of the Annual report on EU competition policy by the European Parliament, the SME Circle held its annual reception with Commissioner Vestager, European Parliament’s President Antonio Tajani as well as EPP Group’s Chairman Manfred Weber.
The Chairman of the EPP Group’s SME Circle Markus Pieper gave the following statement on this occasion:
“Competition policy is vital to ensure a level playing field. Small businesses are taxed on their actual profits. Multi-National Companies like Starbucks or Fiat shift their profits to the most favourable taxation systems. There is something fundamentally wrong when certain countries favour one percent of all the companies with preferential tax rulings and disfavour 99% of the economy, namely the smaller players. For the sake of our SMEs, we need a robust EU competition policy with consistent enforcement mechanisms. We need to ensure that the companies with the best ideas win, not the ones with the best market position.”