The European Commission planned to explore the feasibility of a European legal statute for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The European Private Company (EPC) would be a new legal form, a company with limited liability and legal personality, based on European law that could be established and run following the same rules in each Member State.

Nevertheless, before proposing new legislation, the Commission would like to collect your opinion about the current situation on the Single Market when doing business in other countries of the European Union.

In addition to that, the Commission is interested in your contribution to assess if the European Private Company (EPC) could overcome problems or gaps faced by the businesses in the Single Market, if any, and provide an efficient solution to enterprises all over Europe.

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Sustainability is a key challenge for Europe and the world. Our current patterns of consumption and production are not always environmentally neutral and in many cases use energy and raw materials in excess. However, the environmental challenge can be turned into an economic opportunity for Europe.

There is a need to propose ambitious policies to face these challenges. There is a need for advancement in technological development and in innovation. In the near future, climate change and security of energy supply need to be tackled by moving towards a low carbon economy at global level.

The purpose of this consultation is to gather feed-back from EBTP members to assess companies' opinion about the possibilities and problems they face when moving towards more low carbon, energy efficient production processes.

The banking industry has taken up the challenge of creating a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

SEPA will allow customers to make non-cash euro payments to any beneficiary located in the euro area using a single banking account and a single set of payment instruments. All retail payments in euro will thus become “domestic”; differences between national and cross-border payments within the euro area will cease to exist.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is acting as catalyst in this process and striving to ensure that SEPA will be in the best interests of all parties involved.

This survey aims to investigate corporate awareness and readiness for SEPA, and to ensure that the new SEPA products will meet their needs.

Legislation to combat discrimination already exists in various fields. The Commission would like to hear your opinion on the present levels of protection against discrimination. In addition to that, the Commission is interested in your opinion about the necessity/desirability of additional legislation to protect customers against discrimination.

Flexicurity is a new way of looking at the flexibility and security of the labour market, based on the assumption that flexibility and security can actually be combined.

Flexicurity does not focus on 'a job for life' but rather on supporting people's efforts to enter, remain and progress in employment.