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REPORT (2025/2072(INI))

On access to finance for SMEs and scale-ups

A-10-2025-0185

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs · Rapporteur: Jorge Martín Frías

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This resolution addresses access to finance for SMEs and scale-ups in the EU, covering regulatory burdens, private capital mobilization, scale-up funding gaps, and market competitiveness. It calls for reducing bureaucratic and regulatory burdens, including simplifying reporting and proportionality thresholds, and for a more ambitious simplification strategy. It urges unlocking private capital through better investor access, financial literacy, and tax incentives, and stresses the role of public funding as a catalyst. It emphasizes bridging the scale-up funding gap by mobilizing institutional investors, strengthening co-investment platforms, and ensuring EU instruments are accessible. It calls for a competitive ecosystem with voluntary frameworks, clarification of the 28th regime, and guidance tools for SMEs.

Committee position. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs proposes a resolution calling for reduced regulatory burdens, enhanced private capital mobilization, and a competitive ecosystem to improve SME and scale-up access to finance.

Key points

  1. Calls for reducing regulatory fragmentation and tailoring solutions to SMEs' diverse needs, including those in remote and island areas.
  2. Regrets excessive burdens from the European Green Deal and calls for dedicated definitions of start-ups and scale-ups.
  3. Acknowledges bank lending as primary financing and underlines the role of traditional banking models.
  4. Stresses the need for a scale-up ecosystem based on private investments and public-private partnerships, with criteria of economic efficiency.
  5. Asks the Commission to include agriculture in the start-up and scale-up strategy's priority sectors.
  6. Calls for further simplification beyond omnibus packages, systematic screening of EU acquis, and streamlined InvestEU processes.
  7. Urges assessing regulatory obligations like sustainable finance and developing proportionality thresholds to exempt SMEs.
  8. Calls for a more ambitious simplification strategy with measurable targets and tracking.
  9. Calls for improving investor access, leveraging simplified retail products, and ensuring the Finance Europe label adds no administrative burden.
  10. Regrets EuVECA's limited impact and delays, and calls for removing the EUR 100 000 minimum investment threshold.
  11. Calls for public funding to be catalytic, not subsidies, and for equity tax incentives and venture capital in banking.
  12. Calls for a more flexible securitisation framework and enhanced significant risk transfer framework.

Who is affected

  • SMEs and scale-ups in the EU, including start-ups and micro-enterprises, will benefit from reduced regulatory burdens and better access to finance.
  • Banks, including small regional, savings, and cooperative banks, face calls for proportionality and reduced reporting burdens.
  • Institutional investors like insurance companies and pension funds are encouraged to provide more funding to scale-ups.
  • Retail investors and savers may gain from simplified products and the Finance Europe label.
  • The European Investment Bank Group and EU funds are urged to dedicate more resources to SMEs and scale-ups.

Figures and deadlines

  • SMEs account for 99.8 % of all enterprises, 65.2 % of employment, and 53.1 % of value added in the non-financial business sector in 2023.
  • More than 60 % of EU companies see reporting regulations as an obstacle to investment; 55 % of SMEs flag regulatory obstacles as their greatest challenge.
  • The Commission targets at least a 35 % reduction in reporting burdens for SMEs.
  • Close to 30 % of 'unicorns' relocate abroad.
  • The EUR 100 000 minimum investment threshold for EuVECA is called to be removed.