Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Murphy and his colleagues are very welcome. I thank him for the synopsis he has provided. I wish to touch on the question of state aid again. It seems to me that Europe is losing out mainly to Asia in worldwide competition. It could well be because we have quite strict rules about state aid to manufacturing, export or service companies. Is there a danger that because we are sticking to strict rules on state aid, we are hindering the export business of European companies? On the other hand, we continually hear of other European countries, in competition with us, being able to bend the rules on state aid. I do not know to what extent that is correct, or whether it is just that they are a little bit smarter than we are, or whether we just have a guilty conscience about that aid.

My other question concerns small and medium enterprises, SMEs, which we talked about earlier. How will Europe ensure that if it is going to support SMEs, when SMEs grow bigger - as we encourage them to do - it will not happen that they will be told that as they have become too big they are no longer an SME and these rules no longer apply to them? For a number of years, I was chairman of a sensible regulation committee and found it interesting to examine this matter. One of the challenges we had was that if the rule does not apply to small companies, what happens when they get bigger? We want small companies to get bigger but if they do, the rules begin to apply to them also.

I had not heard of the European professional card before now, but it seems to make a great deal of sense. I cannot believe it takes a long time to do, but maybe it needs the agreement of 27 countries as well as each association and organisation in each of those countries. It sounds sensible and I hope it goes ahead.