EFB welcomes the release of the report on The Future of European competitiveness by Mr Mario Draghi.

The urgent need for investment in innovation, skills , vocational education, training, and the pressing need to cut red-tape are all topics EFB itself point out in its manifesto.

We are glad to see Mr Draghi’s recommendation to go beyond the 25% reduction in reporting and to achieving a further 50% cut on reporting, not only for SMEs but for small mid-caps too. Europe’s companies need an environment where they can easily do business.

Additionally, we also welcome Mr Draghi’s assessment and call to policy makers to urgently address the issue of gold-plating  by Member States.  When gold-plating emerges, companies are left to comply with several different legislative regimes which makes doing business harder.  This harms the EU’s greatest asset, its Single Market. This must be urgently addressed by the European Commission as diverging rules makes Europe an unattractive place to do business.

However, there were crucial things missing from the report.  There was no mention of family businesses, which are important social actors not only due to their commitment to the communities they were founded in, but also due to their substantial presence in our daily lives. Additionally, the importance of business transfers was a glaring omission from the report. EFB maintains that this issue is of critical importance for securing Europe’s future competitiveness and our strategic autonomy.

Overall, we look forward to seeing how the European Commission will implement the guidance from both the Draghi and Letta reports.