: UK GOALS AND PRIORITIES

As stated in our Conservative Manifesto in 2004, we have a concrete vision of the United Kingdom’s place in the European Union: In Europe not run by Europe. We believe the principles for which Europe should stand are: free trade, free markets, deregulation and co-operation. This translates into minimising unnecessary and intrusive legislation, streamlining and simplifying existing EU Directives and their application in the UK and working to promote and safeguard UK tried and tested social, fiscal, economic and cultural specificities and policies.

Governments do not create real jobs, businesses do, sound financial management and productive, successful industries do. Perversely, as Europe’s businesses have been battling to compete, Europe’s left-wing governments have been putting obstacles in their way. Unemployment in some European countries is thus particularly high. We must act to make job creation and greater prosperity the top priority, rather than just waxing poetic about it. For example, the European Commission should “name and shame” countries which still unfairly subsidise their industries with taxpayers’ money to help ensure that competition in Europe is fair and British firms can compete on a level playing field. A “State Aid Scoreboard” should be published twice a year.

Conservative MEPs have developed an Action Plan to reform the EU pro-business and competitiveness strategy:

1. No EU taxes
Taxes in the EU are too high as it is,and EU leaders should resist the temptation to ‘harmonise’ yet another field, let alone introduce new EU-wide taxes.

2. Backing new jobs
The surge of “Social” legislation coming from the EU recently is not helping to bring down unemployment or make the EU job market more flexible. Social legislation obligations, including limits on working time and training and diet requirements for lorry drivers, make running a successful business more and more difficult.

3. Cutting red tape
While large businesses and multinationals may have the means to keep up with the administrative record keeping, at local, national and EU level, SMEs may find it impossible to follow. It has been estimated that excessive red tape in the EU costs a staggering £30 billion each year. Hardly surprising then, that companies in the South West feel they are being buried in red tape.

4. Exploiting new technologies
The EU lags behind its global competitors in the use of new technologies. In the UK alone, while 4 out of 5 SMEs surveyed by the Federation of Small Businesses are connected to the internet, a number of barriers exist to developing their e-commerce capabilities : reluctance of customers to switch to e-commerce, the perception that e-commerce will not benefit their business, the cost of developing and then maintaining a website, development time, technology failures and lack of technical/web skills amongst their employees. The EU needs to promote interest, understanding and innovation in internet and new technologies for business.  EU leaders can start by agreeing to enforce competition rules that encourage cheaper broadband access and by applying EU legislation and blocking data protection rules

5. Punishing rule-breakers
The deadline for the completion of Europe's Internal Market was set for 1992,but many Member States have yet to implement and enforce a plethora of single market measures. In fact, there are currently 1200 "infringement proceedings" in this area before the European Courts. Of course, if only half the players are obeying the rules, it's hardly an equal playing field among businesses. The EU needs to enforce its rules more vigorously, use a fast-track procedure in the European Court of Justice for single market cases and apply hefty fines to the recalcitrant.

We want a Europe that does less and does it better. SMEs should not be burdened with convoluted and unrealisable legislation imposed on them by the distant and the 'one size fits all' school of civil servants and politicians in Brussels.