On the subject of administrative burden reduction and simplification Slovene presidency highly values the input of businesses to designing proposals. It is businesses, after all who are the ones affected by regulations and who are therefore best placed to comment on how things could be made less burdensome for them, while still achieving policy objectives. This sort of consultation is something we undertake effectively at the national level in Slovenia. 

The Slovene Presidency made a contribution in this area. We were co-hosting international event with the European Commission, European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME) and Chamber of Craft and Small Business of Slovenia a

Conference on “Reduction of Administrative Burdens on SMEs” 

on April 17 2008, in Bled.

The key output was to agree a number of concrete proposals for administrative burden reductions on EU legislation on 13 priority fields.

Programme of the conference

Speach of Mr Günther Verheugen, Vice President, European Commision

Opening remarks by Andrea Benassi, secretary-general of UEAPME

Presentations:

• Reduction of Administrative Burdens on SMEs - Robin Linschoten
• Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the EU - Manuel Maria Santiago dos Santos
• Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the European Union, Status of the Programme - Edwin Kok
• "Reducing Administrative Burdens for Businesses" - A Short Presentation of the Austrian Initiative - Heidi Machacek
• Reduction of Administrative Burdens on SMEs - Donald Macrae
• Better Regulation and the Reduction of Red Tape: the SME View - Luc Hendrickx
• Concrete Proposals for Reduction of Administrative Burdens on the Level of EU Legislation -  Luc Hendrickx.

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