Small firms have been hard hit by the economic crisis, and so must be given incentives and support, including easier access to credit, help with innovation, tax breaks and less red tape, MEPs on Parliament's Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis (CRIS), and experts agreed at a workshop on Monday.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), “represent the backbone of the European economy, provide most jobs and are the most creative. They therefore contribute considerably to the EU's success”, declared Special Committee Chairman Wolf Klinz (ALDE, DE), opening the workshop on the impact of the crisis on SMEs.

"SMEs are important not only for innovation but also as engines for growth and employment", agreed Pontus Braunerhjelm, Managing Director of Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum and Professor ofInternational Business and Entrepreneurship at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

SMEs face “particularly difficult access to credit and can’t obtain the traditional sorts of bank loan”, pointed out one of the experts in the workshop, noting that “guarantees required by banks are pretty burdensome and government measures don’t lead to desired results.” They must also deal with particularly complex legislation, slow courts, payment delays sometimes exceeding 1,000 days, and labour market constraints, besides having to pay VAT even before they are able to collect it, he added.

SMEs were "hit twice" by the crisis: first in terms of credit access and then by falling demand for their goods and services, said  Yiorgos Ioannidis, Visiting Fellow in the Department of Political and International Studies of Cambridge University (UK), citing an OECD study.

Recently, the EU has exempted micro-companies from drawing up annual accounts in order to reduce red tape for them and to enhance their competitiveness and release their growth potential.