Friday, April 10th, 2020

ESBA welcomes the emergency response plan of the Eurogroup and its focus on SMEs

The European Small Business Alliance (ESBA) warmly welcomes the decision of the Eurogroup to provide an emergency response plan of 200 billion of financing for SMEs, among the 540 billion of the emergency response plan agreed yesterday.

By endorsing the initiative of the EIB group to create a pan-European guarantee fund of 25 billion which could support EUR 200 billion of financing for companies with a focus on SMEs, the Eurogroup made a crucial contribution for the rescue of the European economy. This safety net will be an important source of liquidity for European SMEs as many goods and services are on hold.

ESBA urges the EIB and national promotional banks to implement this proposal as soon as possible to stand ready to help SMEs throughout the EU. The complementarity with other EU initiatives and the future Invest EU programme should enable the EU and its member states to provide a shielding to a maximum of SMEs to help them through this many-headed crisis.

This engagement of the Eurogroup and the EIB to provide safety nets for European SMEs should also be included in the future reflexion on the Roadmap for Recovery. By acting together and in solidarity, the EU and its institutions demonstrates that saving European business is possible. ESBA welcomes those commitments and fully supports the conclusions of Mário Centeno, “we are stronger together”.

In addition, ESBA launched the PayIn7 petition to support European SMEs. The petition urges all local, national and European public bodies to pay their bills within 7 days instead of 30. By hastening the payment of the bills, SMEs would receive an extra cash flow of 65 billion to face the crisis.