Activities of Danuta JAZŁOWIECKA related to 2014/2210(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Family businesses in Europe (A8-0223/2015 - Angelika Niebler) PL
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on family businesses in Europe
Amendments (7)
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas family businesses range in scope from small firms to corporations and represent 60 % of all European companies, providing between 40 % and 50 % of all jobs in the private sector;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas family businesses differ in terms of values from non-family corporations as regards long-term orientation, have amake an essential contribution to the economy, bringing a long-term stability, due to their special degree of commitment to their local community –, strong values rooted in the European tradition of the ‘honourable merchant’ – and are high level of responsibility as owners – resulting in being generally slower to close down and put workers out of jobs;
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the work being undertaken on an EU definition of ‘family business’, and calls for the specificities within Member States’further efforts in establishing an official definitions to be, takening into account, in particular with regard to the specificities within Member States’ and guaranteeings of social rights, social security, pension entitlements and health and safety at work; a simple, clear and easily applicable and comparable between countries definition would help to better understand the phenomenon and the challenges family businesses face, obtain a clear picture of their contribution to society and allow for specific and effective measures to be introduced.
Amendment 50 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. having identified the ownership as a fundamental issue for the family businesses, calls on the Member States to consider introducing changes to their tax system and company laws, allowing for a more effective and smoother transfer and retention of business within the family; lowering the gift and inheritance tax, introducing favourable tax treatment of the reinvested profits compared to the one of debt financing, favouring the use of non-vote stocks as a way of improving the access to finance without losing control of the company, are only some of the good practices to be shared and promoted;
Amendment 55 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1b. whereas intra-family business transfer is often a succession of social and cultural capital, of knowledge generated from generation to generation, it shall be preserved and promoted; however recent figures from 2011 anticipate that each year some 450 000 firms in the EU look for successors, affecting up to 2 million employees; it is estimated that each year there is a risk of losing approximately 150,000 companies and 600,000 jobs due to inefficient business transfers; good practices on raising awareness of planning a company transfer early are crucial in this respect; employee buyouts are also one possible solution to the business succession problem of these European SMEs; appropriately designed long-term EFP models could also contribute to the retention of these small firm and strengthening regional economies and employment throughout the EU;
Amendment 59 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2a (new)
Paragraph 2a (new)
2a. whereas family businesses represent the largest pool of entrepreneurial potential and are natural incubators for the future entrepreneurs, there is a growing need for enhancing their innovation and progress; moreover in order to professionalise the management of family firms it is crucial to promote entrepreneurship education for both start- ups and existing family firms, incentivising innovation and progress especially at managerial level;
Amendment 60 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2b (new)
Paragraph 2b (new)
2b. whereas long-term objective requires high level of competitiveness and innovation, it is crucial for the family companies to employ skilled and qualified workers; calls on the family businesses themselves to properly balance the family governance aspects within the enterprises in order to attract skilled workforce, often afraid of nepotism and paternalistic practices and lower levels of career progression.