Mobilising private capital for innovation

Image credit: Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

“We must be able to mobilise these huge amounts of money, which are sitting uninvested, and bringing it to European companies.”

Description
(16:45) “We have more than 2 million enterprises working in manufacturing in Europe, probably the percentage of SMEs is around 97%. So we have very small companies. Normally those companies are undercapitalized but meanwhile, we say that to stay competitive, you need to invest an important part in research. At the same time in many European countries, you have a huge amount of private savings, which are just sitting in the banks. We must be able to mobilise these huge amounts of money, which are sitting uninvested, and bringing it to European companies.

So, in my opinion, we have first to find a solution to stop taxing jobs because at this moment, all the taxation in Europe is mainly based on taxing jobs. We have to move taxes to more indirect methods like VAT. Reducing the level of taxation of jobs means also to increase the money that is in the millions of citizens and so, potentially, is money which we can then transform in a positive way in a new economy.”

Relevance
Innovation is the engine of present and future growth. And it is only by combining the positive forces of public and private finance that we will shift to the next gear, enabling all innovators to move forward, from small seed projects to the largest scale-ups ready to become European champions.