20 July 2000 Licensing, Permits and Authorisations for Industry Helmut Jeglitsch, Christine Mészaros-KnollThis project focuses on benchmarking the process of authorising industrial investments in the EU, with special emphasis on the burden on SMEs. The aim is to identify good practice and to develop recommendations on how to implement these so that they can become the normal practice in the EU countries. 57 licensing procedures in eleven countries and regions were examined. 75 percent of the enterprises investigated had less than 250 employees and 84 percent of the investments studied amounted to less than EUR 10 million. Most firms studied had very little experience in applying for licences. The benchmarking study found that major changes to the legal framework are not necessary to improve the licensing systems. The most important elements for firms are the time taken and the amount of work required to apply for and receive a licence and the early predictability of the result were the crucial quantitative benchmarks for the firms. The key means to this end for both the firms and the authorities are the process benchmarks:
Provide targeted information Licensing authorities should take the communications task seriously and aim to provide targeted information on the licensing procedure. An attitude of openness and good communications should be fostered between the authorities and the general public as well as with the applicants for licences. Facilitate informal preliminary queries to increase predictability of outcome
Optimise organisational matters to minimise time-span for procedures
Vienna, 20 July 2000. For further information, please refer to Mr. Helmut Jeglitsch, phone (1) 798 26 01, ext. 261 or Mrs. Christine Mészaros-Knoll, phone (1) 798 26 01, ext. 204. This article will be published in WIFO's Austrian Economic Quarterly, 3/2000 and is based on a study compiled by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and the European Commission, DG Enterprise. Orders to WIFO, Ms Christine Kautz, A-1103 Vienna, P.O. Box 91, tel. (+43 1) 798 26 01/282, fax (+43 1) 798 93 86, e-mail Christine.Kautz@wifo.ac.at); free download: http://bm-licensing.wsr.ac.at/reports/reports.html |