Mr Müller during his speech

UEAPME Secretary General Hans-Werner Müller spoke at a meeting on Corporate Social Responsibility co-organised at the European Parliament by UEAPME and the SME Union.

Speakers included Mr Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP, newly elected Coordinator of the EP Employment and Social Affairs Committee and Vice-President of the SME Circle, Mr Giuseppe Cacciato, Head of Unit at the European Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry, and Ms Genevieve Besse, CSR Policy Officer at the European Commission’s DG Employment and Social Affairs.

The European Parliament’s plenary will soon vote on an own-initiative report on CSR, the so-called "Howitt report", which was strongly criticised by UEAPME for being off the mark and far from the current common understanding of CSR.

Mr Müller reinstated UEAPME’s support and attention towards CSR practices, but also stressed that CSR must be conceived according to certain principles and seen in the light of the reality of Europe’s more than 24 million SMEs. He then went on to went on to elaborate on the main SME concerns on the Howitt report.

Mr Cacciato, Mr Bushill-Matthews, Ms Besse, Mr Müller

He stressed that the report proposals to introduce compulsory reporting on CSR activities are completely off the mark. First of all, CSR must be seen in the light of its voluntary nature. Secondly, obligatory reports will not make enterprises more socially responsible; quite the contrary, they will put them on the defensive and scare them away from CSR. Thirdly, calls for compulsory reporting do not take into account the additional administrative burden for SMEs, which is already unacceptably heavy. Finally, a useful evaluation and verification by independent third parties, as suggested, would be impossible when facing 25 million reports.

Additional liabilities arising from CSR practices are also recommended by the Howitt report, both for a company’s own actions and for subcontracting or supply chain relations. These would be of no added value, continued Mr Müller. In fact, the existing legislation already provides sufficient safeguards in principle.

Mr Müller concluded by urging MEPs to reject the Howitt report, as it leaves a lot to be desired, creates mistrust towards enterprises and is not appropriate to promote a real uptake of socially responsible activities by enterprises in general and SMEs in particular.