On 24th September, the Council of the EU agreed on its position on a Small Mid-Cap enterprises (SMC) definition. The Council suggested to increase thresholds of the European Commission’s SMC definition as per its Omnibus IV proposal. We are very pleased with their proposal.

The Commission’s original proposal for an SMC definition, which is three times that of the established SME definition, was a great initial step in developing a Small mid-cap category.

The Commission proposed that SMCs ought to be defined as:

Enterprises with fewer than 750 employees and either up to €150 million in turnover or up to €129 million in annual balance sheet total.

The Council raised these thresholds to:

Enterprises with fewer than 1000 employees and either an annual turnover of up to €200 million or up to €172 million in annual balance sheet total.

We find this to be a positive approach. As we have argued in previous papers, there is a need to have a small mid-cap and larger mid-cap definition. It is for this reason that we recommend that the European Investment Bank’s definition of mid-caps which includes companies with between 250 and 3,000 employees could be the scope for an EU mid-cap category with a small and larger mid-cap definition.

While we await for the European Parliament’s position on the matter, we applaud the strides made by both the Commission and the Council in recognising the significance of mid-caps to the European economy and to long-term competitiveness.