I am happy to support this report. I note that Vice-President Bangemann has assured us that there will be a specific action plan to ensure that SMEs are not penalized by larger companies and in relation to larger companies. It is entirely unacceptable the the muscle of certain large and often unscrupulous companies should be used to hold up payments to smaller companies for supplies made to them by those smaller companies.

This is particularly so when larger supplying enterprises have much greater resources to bring pressure on their customers to ensure payment is made than do SMEs.

In the United States there is far greater attention given to protecting SMEs. We must do likewise for the health of our European economy.