Insuleur General Assembly, and Public Hearing organised by EESC, ESIN and INSULEUR

Mr Joseph Borg, who is also currently president of Insuleur, chaired the General Assembly of INSULEUR on the 5^th April 2019.

Together with Mr Daniel Borg (CEO of GBC) they  also participated in the Public Hearing ‘Are European Policies suitable to help doing business on small islands’ organised by the European Economic Social Committee, INSULEUR and ESIN. Mr Joseph Borg delivered a presentation on ‘Access to Finance for SMEs’. By taking the case of Gozo Mr Joseph Borg highlighted how the present de minimis state aid rules vanify national governments’ efforts to neutralise added costs for business entities based on islands. Any support under the de minimis rules hinders their ability to apply for other funds being administered under the same state aid regime. Consequently it is important that the de minimis state aid regime should change to reflect the reality on islands or dependent islands like the case of Gozo. In the case of the access to finance Mr Borg also highlighted the issue of whether specific financial packages for islands should be developed.

The full speech can be downloaded  Access to Finance for Insular SMEs – Joseph Borg.