Spain will promote the use of Artificial Intelligence to facilitate the competitiveness and growth of European SMEs

Luxembourg (Luxembourg)

The Minister for Economy, Trade and Enterprise, Carlos Cuerpo, before the media, on the occasion of the meeting of the Ministers of Economy and Finance of the European Union

The proposal aims to promote the use of this technology to facilitate compliance with regulations and bureaucratic requirements, and to streamline the different national regimes and procedures in the EU, helping to improve the efficiency and productivity of SMEs.

"Spain is confident that the EU can seize the opportunity of transformative technologies to strengthen its competitiveness in an increasingly fragmented world," said Carlos Cuerpo. "This would be a crucial step towards ensuring Europe's economic security".

Through the ethical and responsible use of AI, SMEs could benefit from an 'artificial administrator' to handle paperwork and interactions with administrations, so that companies can focus on their core business. The tool has the potential to generate productivity gains for a large number of economic sectors.

This project, which is being developed between the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise and the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function, envisages collaboration between the administration and cutting-edge technology companies to implement AI models aimed at SMEs. This proposal will provide a short-term structural solution that can offer an effective reduction in administrative costs.

The Recovery and Resilience Mechanism offers a perfect opportunity to test the new technology. The AI tool can help speed up the implementation of the Recovery Fund, thereby responding to business demands to reduce the administrative hurdles associated with the instrument.

European SMEs account for 99% of the European business fabric and employ more than 100 million people. Their competitive framework has been improved thank to the impetus given by various initiatives such as the European Commission's Better Regulation agenda, although they still face many challenges to increase their size, seek funding and transform in the areas of sustainability and digitisation.

To be effective, the new tool would need to have common standards to ensure replicability among service providers. They would also be provided with training to develop the skills and resources needed to adopt and use AI solutions more efficiently, all monitored by the authorities to assess their effectiveness and impact.

Non official translation