Transcript Tinholt-Carrara

Fostering economic growth by enabling
cross-border business start-up
Dinand Tinholt – Programme Director SPOCS - @tinholt
Wendy Carrara – Deputy Prog. Director SPOCS - @wcarrara
Forum of the Committee of the Regions - 30 November 2010
Services are crucial to the European
Internal Market
The service sector is the main driver of growth and jobs in EU!
 Service sector represents around 70% of GDP and
employment
 74% of the total number of enterprises in the non-financial
business economy is a service enterprise
 95% of new created jobs in recent years is within the
service sector
 The increase in wealth attributable to the Internal Market
the last 10 years is nearly € 900 billion
 Services are the main driver of foreign direct investment
(FDI) in Western Europe representing 60% of new FDI jobs
Sources: Eurostat, Commission report “Employment in Europe 2006”, Ernst & Young’s 2008 European attractiveness survey.
Every single new business started up
contributes strongly to the economy
 The average enterprise in the services sector in Europe
creates on average:
 Turnover: EUR 1,100,000
 Profit: EUR 210,580
 Number of employed persons: 6.4 FTE
 Foreign-controlled service enterprises on the other hand:
 Generated a profit of on average EUR 560,000
 and employ 53 FTE on average
Imagine what this means for governments’ tax income and avoiding
social security costs for unemployed persons!
Sources: Calculated from EUROSTAT 2006 tables on size and structure
… Now imagine a fictional city. Doing business
in Europe is a challenging journey…
Municipal
registry
office
Inf ormation to central trade register
Good-conduct certif icate
Inf o on entries in the debtor directory
Attestation: no insolvency proceedings
Tax number
Tax clearance certif icate
Trade authorisation
Registration of a business (notif ies other
authorities which get in contact, if
required
Tax
authority
Trade
office
Notary
Local
building
authority
Procedures
over
procedures in
each MS 
Attestation of trade register registration applctn
Registration in trade register/ issue of
excerpt f orm commercial register
Building licence, if required
Direct contact with trade supervisory
of f ice, if required
Trade
Job centre Health
supervisory
insurance
office
company
Chasing one’s tail around multiple agencies…
…and a host of compliance activities
Registration (f orwarded to aliens dept.
due to f ree movement authorisation)
Local
court
Application f or company number
Registration of employees
=
A waste of time and money
?
Is EU globally competitive?
Digital natives / governors
convergence
Doing business in Europe….
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But that has all changed now! Or has it?
The Services Directive today
MS B
– heterogeneous national
Where
systems
to go?
– No way using home
infrastructures connected
to services abroad
– barriers using eServices
MS A
MS C
PSC
MS C
CA
PSC
Service
Provider
MS D
MS D
PSC
without SD
with SD
Interoperable Services
(Hopefully) Compliance
CA
with the
SD but still,…
MS B
What will SPOCS do?
Adopt, adapt and create the new interoperability “lego blocks” and use them
for cross-border business startup
…with 16 European Countries and 30+ Partners!
The challenge?
Removing
borders in a
digital era!
How to achieve this?
Integration?
No, but…
Interoperability!
Countries, regions and cities must choose
and act to be competitive

Benchlearning projects show €12m administrative savings p.a for
small countries for just one service

Improving offline services and taking them online can save up to 5
times the costs in administrative procedures

With many business registrations in the
EU annually it is important to make this
easier

Make it simple for foreign and local
businesses
For further information visit our website
www.eu-spocs.eu
Or contact: [email protected]
Twitter: @tinholt
BACKUP INFORMATION
The SPOCS ‘Big Picture’
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