Author: SME Chamber

Ir-regolamenti l-godda li hareg il-Ministru tas-sahha bhala responsabbli mill-Awtorita' ghas-sahha u s-sigurta' fuq il-post tax-xoghol fl-ahhar ta' Jannar – Regolament tal- 2012 dwar is-sahha u s-sigurta' fuq il-post tax-xoghol (Hlas ta' Penali) – mill-Occupational Health & Safety Authority (OHSA) – jinkorporaw bidla pozittiva li l-GRTU f'isem in-negozji micro, zghar u medji Maltin ilha tirsisti ghalih is-snin. Ghaliex biha il-GRTU rebhet glieda kbira li ilna nahdmu ghaliha.

Sal-Lum il-bicca il-kbira tar- regolamenti li kien johrog il-Gvern kienu jfajjru multi f'multi ghal bosta snin fejn insistejna li l-penalitajiet ikunu "dejn civili" u li l-hlasijiet jistghu jithallsu bin-nofs fuq tlett snin. In-negozji li jridu hu li mhux biss jithallsu fil-pront irrispettivament mill-pozizzjoni finanzjarja tan-negozju milqut, imma ukoll il-multi kienu ta' natura kriminali, li jfisser li jekk ma jithallsux is-sid tan-negozju jmur il-habs. Sfortunatament hekk ghadhom hafna regolamenti. Dawn ir-regolamenti izda, b'sodifazzjon ghall-GRTU jibdlu dan kollu u l-multi qed ikunu dikjarati li huma ta' natura civili jigifieri  kienet thobb wisq tikkriminalizza l-izbalji tal-kummercjant.

Il-GRTU kienet wahedha tiggieled kontra s-sistema' antika. Dan ukoll kien commitment personali tal-Onorevoli Lawrence Gonzi lill-GRTU li kull meta jidhlu penali jkunu taht forma ta' "dejn civili" u mhux ta' multi ta' natura kriminali li jistghu jwasslu ghal habs bhal ma huma dawk fil-Ligi tal-VAT u li l-GRTU tant iggieldet u ghadha tiggieled kontrihom. Il-GRTU issostni li jek is-sid ta' intrapriza li jahdem u qatt ma jiehu xejn mill-Gvern, jhaddem in-nies u jkattar il-gid b'xi mod jonqos u m'ghandux jintefa' l-habs izda jinghata kastig ragonevoli.

Il-GRTU pero tipprotesta kontra l-mod negattiv ta' penalitajiet bl-addocc imposti min naha ta' din l-Awtorita'. Il-GRTU temmen li fil-qasam tas-sahha fuq il-post tax-xoghol, l-aktar fejn jidhlu negozji zghar u self-employed hemm hafna lok ghall-aktar tharrig u informazzjoni u edukazzjoni. Minflok aktar edukazzjoni u aktar skemi mill-Malta Enterprise u l-Awtroita' innifisha halli s-sidien ta' intraprizi u self employed ikunu jistghu jaffordjaw jibdlu u jzommu dejjem up to date l-apparat taghhom izda l-Gvern qieghed jiehu t-triq aktar irhisa ta' multi u persekuzzjoni. Il- GRTU hi kontra dan il-mod negattiv lejn l-intrapriza u s-self employed. Il-GRTU tibqa' tinsisti li waqt li l-enforcement ghandu jsir izda hu aktar importanti li l-Gvern jghin lill- intraprizi z-zghar b'aktar tahrig u skemi adatti biex fl-anqas zmien possibli u b'lanqas tbatija finanzjarja ghas- self employed u s-sidien ta' negozji zghar,Malta tilhaq l-ghanijiet ta' aktar sahha u sigurta' fuq il-postijiet tax-xoghol kollha. Ghas- self employed u s-sid tan-negozju z-zghir dan hu mportanti ghaliex is-sahha fin-nofs hi fil-bicca l-kbira tal-kazi tas-sid stess u tal-familja tieghu kif ukoll tal-impjegati tieghu.

Since the presentation of its proposal for the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) last June, the Commission has proposed over 120 changes to simplify the rules governing EU funding for Small and Medium Enterprises, towns and regions, students, scientists and others. Today's communication "A simplification agenda for the 2014-2020 MFF" brings them altogether in one single document. The key question now is whether the European Parliament and the Member States are ready to make the life of EU funds' beneficiaries easier by reducing the administrative burden on them.

EU Commissioner for financing programming and budget Janusz Lewandowski said."EU funds can play a key role as we strive towards sustainable economic growth by providing extra funds to our business, regional authorities and researchers. We wanted to make the access procedure to those funds less like a maze and more user-friendly."

However,  EU rules are often completed by additional rules at national level. Therefore, efforts at EU level cannot succeed if they are not followed up by similar efforts at national, regional and local levels. That is why the Commission hopes that the legislators in the European Parliament, the Council as well as in Member States will see simplification as crucial.

Examples of simplification of access to funding

• The purchase of machinery in a vocational school was financed from the European Regional Development Fund. The same school got a grant for curricula development from the European Social Fund. Even though both investments were needed to introduce a new training programme, the school had to do all the paperwork twice. Under our proposal, combining money from both funds will be easier; the school will be able to follow one procedure only, allowing it to devote more time to delivering the new training to pupils.
• The current arrangements demand to keep the documents regarding EU co-funded cohesion projects for up to 10 years. For some projects this retention time can reach 15 years. The new rules will cut this time to 5 years. The effect of this simplification is especially important for smaller beneficiaries such as NGOs and SME's.
• Today there are no limits to how many times a project can be audited. Some beneficiaries of ERDF may be subjected to several audits in a year by their national audit authority or the Commission, which is time consuming In the next period the Commission proposes a better coordination with national auditors. Projects under 100 000 euro will not be audited more than once at all and bigger projects no more than once a year.
• In Research it takes on average 350 days to get a grant. The Commission proposes to reduce it by one third (100 days).
• An ESF beneficiary had to keep the bus tickets of participants in a training event for justifying of money spent on the project. Unfortunately, the ink on the bus tickets disappeared after some time and the beneficiaries could not proof the expenditure. In future it will be possible to use options such as flat rates and lump sums to a much greater extent, so it will not be necessary to collect bus ticket at all. The focus must be on project quality and results.

Background

The Commission published its proposal for the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 on 29 June 2011. By 31 December 2011, the Commission tabled a comprehensive set of 57 sector specific legislative proposals underlying the MFF 2014-2020. Together with the revision of the Financial Regulation, all these proposals make for a coherent set of rules having among others as an important feature the goal of simplification. They should be adopted by the end of 2013 in order to ensure that new programmes can start as of 1 January 2014.

In drawing up its proposals, the Commission assessed the functioning of existing spending instruments and programmes and consulted widely with citizens and stakeholders in view of designing such instruments and spending programmes, which would best match their needs and modes of operation.

The full Communication:

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/documents/fin_fwk1420/fin_fwk1420_en.cfm%20-%20simplification

What is the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS)? The Innovation Union Scoreboard 2011 is the second edition of the Scoreboard following the adoption of the Innovation Union Communication in October 2010. The IUS replaces the European Innovation Scoreboard which was published from 2001 to 2009. It provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of the EU27 Member States and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. In this way, it complements the Europe 2020 Annual Growth Survey and helps Member States assess areas in which they need to concentrate to boost their innovation performance. In addition, the Scoreboard covers Croatia, Serbia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. On a more limited number of indicators available internationally it also covers Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the US.

Who are the innovation leaders in the European Union?

A measure for a country's innovation performance is provided by the Summary Innovation Index, a composite indicator obtained by an appropriate aggregation of the IUS indicators (see Section 7.1 for a brief explanation of the calculation methodology and the IUS 2010 Methodology report for a more detailed explanation). Based on the Summary Innovation Index, the Member States fall into the following four country groups (Figure 1):

• Innovation leaders: Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland, all show a performance well above that of the EU27 average.
• Innovation followers: Belgium, the UK, Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, France, Slovenia, Cyprus and Estonia all show a performance close to that of the EU27 average.
• Moderate innovators: The performance of Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Malta Slovakia and Poland is below that of the EU27 average.

Modest innovators: The performance of Romania, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Latvia, and is well below that of the EU27 average.

What are the main conclusions of the 2011 Research and Innovation Union Scoreboard?

The most innovative countries share a number of strengths in their national research and innovation systems with a key role of business activity and public-private collaboration. While there is not one single way to reach top innovation performance, it is clear that all Innovation leaders, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland, perform very well in Business R&D expenditure. Most of the innovation leaders also perform very well in other innovation indicators related to firm activities. Sweden, the most innovative EU Member State, dominates in three innovation dimensions: Human resources, Finance and support, and Firm investments; while Germany and Denmark perform best in two innovation dimensions each.

All of the innovation leaders have higher than average scores in public-private co-publications suggesting good linkages between the science base and enterprises. The most innovative countries also excel in the commercialisation of their technological knowledge, as demonstrated by their good performance on license and patent revenues from abroad.

The overall good performance of the Innovation leaders reflects a balanced national research and innovation system. Both the Innovation leaders as well as the Innovation followers have the smallest variance in their performance across all the 8 innovation dimensions. (Figure 3 – see below)

While each country has its own specificities, policy responses should attempt not only to address relative weaknesses in national research and innovation systems, but also to have more balanced performances across all categories of indicators.

It is evident that the moderate and modest innovators are characterised by unbalanced research and innovation systems. This is particularly clear in the ‘innovators' dimension with very low shares of SMEs introducing product or process innovations as well as SMEs introducing marketing and organisational innovations. At the same time, the growth rates of most of the modest and moderate innovators are the highest among the EU27 which indicates a convergence process with Bulgaria as a catching-up leader, followed by and Estonia.

Is there convergence in innovation performance within the EU?

The growth in innovation performance has been calculated for each country and for the EU27 using data over a five-year period. All countries except Luxembourg and the UK show an absolute improvement in their innovation performance over time. On average countries starting with a lower performance level have experienced a faster increase in their performance indicating that between the Member States there is convergence in innovation performance.  (Figure 4)

How does the EU fare in comparison to its international partners?

A comparison with other European countries shows that Switzerland is the overall Innovation leader continuously outperforming all EU27 Member States. Iceland is part of the Innovation followers, Croatia, Norway and Serbia of the Moderate innovators and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey of the Modest innovators (Figure 2 – see below).

Comparing the EU27 with a group of major global competitors shows that the US, Japan and South Korea have a performance lead over the EU27 (figure 5 – see below). This lead has been increasing for South Korea, has remained stable for the US and has been decreasing for Japan. The global innovation leaders US and Japan are particularly dominating the EU27 in indicators capturing business activity and public-private cooperation: ‘R&D expenditure in the business sector', ‘Public-private co-publications', ‘License and patent revenues from abroad' and ‘PCT patent applications'. South Korea which is increasingly outperforming the EU27 is again having its biggest lead in R&D expenditures in the business sector. The US is also clearly dominating the EU in the production of high-impact scientific publications.

The EU27 has a performance lead over Australia, Canada and all BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, figure 5 – see below). This lead has been increasing compared to Canada, Russia and South Africa, has remained stable to Australia and has been decreasing to Brazil and in particular to China and India. China has been closing the innovation gap to Europe continuously in the last few years.

What are the innovation profiles of individual countries?

Malta is one of the moderate innovators with a below average performance.

Relative strengths are in Intellectual assets and economic effects. Relative weaknesses are in human resources, open, excellent and attractive research systems, finance and support, linkages & entrepreneurship and Innovators.

High growth is observed for new doctorate graduates, International scientific co-publications, community trademarks and knowledge-intensive services exports. A strong decline is observed for public-private co-publications and license and patent revenues from abroad. Growth performance in human resources, open, excellent and attractive research systems, Intellectual assets and Innovators is well above average.

You may wish to consult the link below for further information and details:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/74&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

The next call for proposals for the EU's ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) has been launched in February 2012. In this light the Malta National Contact Point for the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP Malta NCP), in collaboration with the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA), is organising an information event for local stakeholders, in order to create awareness of the various funding opportunities that exist within the ICT-PSP programme:

Venue: MITA 01,Triq Il-Ferrovija, St.Venera
Date: 21st February 2012
Time: 8.30 – 11.30 hrs

Background information

The EU's ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) is a funding programme that aims at stimulating EU innovation and competitiveness by accelerating the development of a sustainable, competitive, innovative and inclusive information society. It supports activities to step up innovation and implementation of ICT-based services and systems through the wider uptake and best use of ICT and the exploitation of digital content by citizens, governments and businesses.

In the EU the greater uptake in the EU of ICT and exploitation of digital content in areas of public interest – like health, inclusion, cultural heritage, public sector information, learning, public administrations, or energy efficiency – requires greater availability of ICT-based services, improved interoperability of solutions across the Member States, as well as less market fragmentation of the information space and ICT-based solutions.

Therefore the ICT PSP assists the development of markets for innovative ICT-based solutions and digital content, notably in areas of public interest. This opens-up a wide range of new business opportunities, in particular for innovative SMEs that provide such solutions and are keen to form part of a European network of partners. The Programme builds on and complements national, regional and other EU initiatives.
The aim of this roundtable is to provide a forum for debate and experience sharing and to outline various avenues that could be considered to pursue by stakeholders regarding ICT-PSP projects. It will also serve as a meeting platform to establish direct communication channels and set the base for possible further collaborations and joint projects between stakeholders.

The ICT-PSP 2012 Call for Proposals will address the following

 themes:

-ICT for "smart" cities

-Digital content, open data and creativity

-ICT for health, ageing well and inclusion

-Innovative government and public services

-Trusted eServices and other actions

These themes will be supported by a limited number of high impact pilot or best practices projects, as well as thematic networks addressing specific objectives. The call documentation can be downloaded from here: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/participating/calls/call_proposals_12/index_en.htm  

For more info kindly contact the Malta CIP National Contact Point on  or visit http://www.cipmalta.com/ 

Why did you become an entrepreneur? Followed my fathers footsteps. Business has been in my blood from a very young age.

How have you come to chose your line of business?

In the 80's we had nothing in Malta so we opened a shop that sold nice and different things, where the customers found the a-z gifts from toys, house gifts, clothes, cards and wrapping.

Where did you go on your last holiday?

Tuscany-Italy

What is your earliest memory?

Enjoying summer in a caravan at Armier.

If you could chose to be someone famous who would you be?

Meryl Streep

The WTO Council for Trade in Goods has approved a request by the European Union to temporarily lift EU duties on certain products from Pakistan to help the country recover from massive floods in 2010. This request for a waiver from its WTO obligations was initially made by the EU on 30 November 2010 and is independent from the current discussions on the EU's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).

The EU request concerns a waiver on trade preferences for 75 products from Pakistan, which now include 20 on which tariff rate quotas would be applied instead of full liberalisation. According to the EU, this new version revision reflects consultations with WTO members that have expressed concerns about the EU request. The EU reiterated that it was asking for a waiver for an exceptional measure being taken in the light of exceptional circumstances, and would not be a precedent in the WTO. It added that the measures would be in effect from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2013. 

The approved waiver request has now been forwarded to the WTO General Council for adoption.

Text of the EU request:

http://docsonline.wto.org/DDFDocuments/t/G/C/W640R2.doc

More info on the WTO website: 

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news12_e/good_02feb12_e.htm

Malta Enterprise is inviting businesses wishing to explore business opportunities in Israel to participate in an Investment and Trade Promotion delegation to Tel Aviv, between the 18^th and 21^st of March, 2012.  This delegation is open to all sectors however promising areas for investment, trade and technology commercialisation include:

Pharmaceuticals

Life Sciences

Chemicals

ICT

Financial & Professional Services

Creative Industries

F & B

Renewable Energy

Travel & Tourism

As part of its assistance Malta Enterprise will endeavour to set up one-to-one meetings for participants through its institutional networks. Malta Enterprise will also refund eligible participants up to 60% of flight costs and a per diem allowance. Refund is for one representative per participating company.

Application forms together with a €250 deposit should be sent to Malta Enterprise by not later than Friday 17^th February 2012. This deposit will be fully refunded together with the financial assistance referred to above after the event. In cases where a company cancels its participation, any cancellation costs incurred by Malta Enterprise on behalf of the company will be deducted from this deposit.

A copy of the application form and more information can be also obtained from GRTU by contacting Abigail Mamo

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which is supposed to set standards for responding to piracy and counterfeiting, is coming under attack in the Parliament and in some member states, with civil-liberties campaigners complaining about its sanctions. International negotiations on the agreement were concluded in October 2010, but its ratification is now the subject of heavy lobbying on both sides.Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP, said he had enough support from his own group and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) to submit a resolution to the Parliament's plenary session in March to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a review as to whether the deal violates EUlaws. Such a review could take as long as two years.

Hannes Swoboda, the leader of the S&D group, said "there is a need for greater international co-operation [to combat counterfeiting] but we question whether ACTA would be the righttool to achieve this".

"Since the Parliament can only say ‘Yes' or ‘No' and we cannot amend the text, we as a group might not be able to approve the agreement."

The Parliament's approval is required before the treaty can come into force. The accord also needs to be ratified by national parliaments. It has already been signed by 22 member states. However, Poland is re-considering its approval and the Czech Republic has suspended its approval procedure.
David Martin, a UK centre-left MEP, was appointed on Monday (6 February) to draft the Parliament's stance on ACTA. He replaces Kader Arif, a French centre-left MEP, who resigned from the task in protest against the way the accord had been negotiated by the European Commission. He criticised the Commission for not involving MEPs more during the negotiations.

Martin said he would "not be rushed" in drafting his review and recommendation. He said that he could seek the legal advice of the ECJ "to ensure that ACTA respects the existingbody of EU law".

Albrecht said that MEPs were under pressure from voters to conduct a careful review." Daniel Caspary, a German centre-right MEP, said a thorough debate was required, meaning that MEPs were unlikely to stick to the provisional timetable, which foresees a plenary vote in June.

A first debate on the agreement is scheduled for 29 February in the Parliament's international trade committee. A vote in that committee will not be scheduled until after that committee has received the opinions of four other committees – development; civil liberties, justice and home affairs; legal affairs; and industry, research and energy. A workshop on the content of the agreement is planned for 1 March.

The GRTU would like to forward to you an invitation to an ‘Information Session on the new EU Energy Labels'  to be held on Friday 6^th March 2012, at the Corinthia Palace Hotel & Spa, Balzan, 8:30am – 11:00am. Participation is free of charge.

The aim of this information session is to provide you with a better understanding of the requirements stemming from the latest EU Energy Label legislation for different types of household appliances that came into effect recently.

This event is being organised by Project in Motion Ltd in collaboration with the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) and the GRTU.

The Come On Labels project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme – http://www.come-on-labels.eu/