The European Commission (EC) will this week launch its programme to simplify legislation on stock exchanges by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Per-Ove Engelbrecht, head of the Financing Innovation and SMEs department at the EC, in a speech at the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association said the simplification would affect the rules, information requirements and indexes of regulated and alternative markets.
In March, Fabrice Demarigny, a capital markets consultant, published a report recommending the launch next year of a secondary set of exchanges accessed through one point that would encourage younger companies to list, according to news provider EurActiv.
The review is part of the EC’s Innovation Union strategy to improve the continent’s competitiveness by 2020 and follows in the wake of the planned single market for financial services report set out in May by Mario Monti, former secretary general of the EC, which acts effectively as the bureaucratic arm of the European Union.
A draft of the Single Market Act seen by news provider EurActiv calls for smarter regulation, an EU-wide register of companies, an overhaul of accounting directives, cross-border trade and helping SMEs to access finance.
The Innovation Union aims to use "public sector intervention to stimulate the private sector and to remove bottlenecks which stop ideas reaching the market. These include lack of finance, fragmented research systems and markets, under-use of public procurement for innovation and slow standard setting."
Engelbrecht said there were 34 commitments made in the document revealed earlier this month and encouraging venture investment was one. He hoped a public and private partnership would help provide the risk capital and to remove bottlenecks funds would be able to operate freely between the 27 members of the European Union (EU).
Although he said there was "little money", the EU would invest in funds through the European Investment Fund for start-ups either as equity or mezzanine debt.
He also floated the idea of trading platform for buying and selling under-used intellectual property assets, such as patents, and encouraging the transfer of technology from research and other organisations. A EU patent could be in place by 2014, if agreement is reached.