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EU Charter for small enterprises

By Daniëlle Bremer

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Small enterprises often face specific obstacles. The European Charter for Small Enterprises tries to reduce these problems. Linked to this Europe-wide charter a special one for the Western Balkans and Moldova hopes to make progress on a regional level. Recently the national coordinators of this charter met in Pristina to discuss possible solutions and compare strategies.

Faton Mikullovci and his colleague Gjon Mirëdita run a graphic design company. As there’s just the two of them in the office they also do the work for which a bigger company would hire specialists, such as maintenance of equipment, acquisition of new clients or administration. Owner Faton explains:

It’s very difficult in these circumstances to devote time to do administration, something which anyway takes a lot of time usually, and we don’t have money to pay someone to do this work.

Other problems small companies face are: lack of information and flexibility from the tax administration and difficulty in getting a loan.

Our main problem is the lack of support from banks and the government who could help us with guarantees so we can easier take a loan. Our companies are small and we can cover all our projects with small investments: a small amount could help us forward and maybe even bring an extra workplace.

These are not only problems for small enterprises in Kosovo; these are obstacles for small and medium sized businesses all over Europe.

At the meeting for the ‘EU Small Enterprise Charter for Western Balkans and Moldova’ these difficulties were discussed.

Head of UNMIK Soren Jessen Petersen opened the conference and emphasized the importance of small enterprises.

“Small enterprises are the most adaptable and vibrant part of the economy and their success is therefore crucial to overall economic development.”

Chief of UNMIK’s Pillar IV, Joachim Ruecker, joined Petersen and underlined the importance of the Charter and the European Union’s support for Kosovo’s economic development.

‘The EU pillar has from the very beginning strongly supported the European commissions initiative to include Kosovo in this process as we believe that their entrepreneurship and small enterprise are of great importance for the economic development of Kosovo and Kosovo does have a tradition of entrepreneurial spirit which is an asset for the economy.’

Naser Grajcevci works for the Ministry of Trade and Industry as ‘Director of Private Sector Development Policy’ and took seat in the two-day EU-charter conference as Kosovo’s national coordinator. He describes the different projects through which the ministry hopes to eliminate some of the problems small businesses have to deal with.

‘The parliament has approved the law to support small and medium sized enterprises, which law will be implemented in the future and through which law we foresee to establish an agency to support these enterprises. In the field of training and counseling workers we also developed a plan, following a very simple method. And in the field of finance we are trying together with the donor community to build a scheme of guaranteeing credits.

For Faton’s Graphic Design company a financing scheme set up by the government would certainly be helpful. He also welcomes the project aimed at training people, because despite Kosovo’s high unemployment he finds it difficult to get high-qualified workers.

really there are no people who train themselves, invest in themselves in the aspect of knowledge and then develop themselves to that level that when we need someone, we can hire someone.

And he suggests yet another issue where the government could be of help: in providing legislation for a more secure payment environment. Being small his company cannot easily put pressure on their nonpayers, which means they frequently end up waiting for their money. Especially big companies often don’t take their debts with small companies seriously.

‘They say OK, it’s just a small amount, we can wait with payment. No problem. We’ll first finish our big payments. We pay them later. But this ‘later’ can often be fatal for small companies.

The ‘EU Charter for Small Enterprises’ including the specific charter for ‘Western Balkans and Moldova’ intends to help entrepreneurs throughout Europe to become more successful and hopes to make it more attractive for people to start their own business. Kosovo’s businessmen can only hope for a fast implementation of all the plans made by the coordinators of the charter.

With this we end today’s program.

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