Small firms want bigger say in IT plans

Smaller tech businesses want a bigger say on the European IT strategy coming out of Brussels.

In an open letter to the European Commission, six small business associations have called for changes to a proposed taskforce that will define European IT policy.

The taskforce will look at barriers to competition and the competitiveness of the European IT industry, which contributes 5.3 per cent of the EU's gross domestic product and 3.6 per cent of its jobs. Issues it will investigate include innovation, skills and employability, and the role of SMEs.

The associations argue that the taskforce is made up of large IT companies and ignores the fact 80 per cent of the European IT sector is made up of small and medium-sized companies. Members of the taskforce include executives from BT, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SAP.

Pieter Hintjens, president of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, an association which represents 3,500 European IT companies, said the EU must become more inclusive and less elitist.

German, Polish, Slovene and UK small business organisations have backed the call.

And David Ramsden, chairman of UK IT freelancers group PCG, said in a statement that small business are often among the most dynamic.