Administrative simplification in the area of company incorporation

Business Encouragement Plan (2006)

One of the consequences of the European Council meeting in 2005 was the decision to renew the Lisbon Strategy with a clear reference to the European Charter for Small Businesses, so Spain drew up its National Reform Plan with the Business Encouragement Plan as one of its cornerstones. The Spanish Government drew up its National Reform Programme around two main goals: achieving full convergence in terms of per capita income in 2010 and exceeding the EU’s employment level in the same year.

The Business Encouragement Plan sets the following targets:

• To boost entrepreneurial initiative throughout society. In particular, the National Reform Programme put forward the specific goal of speeding up the pace at which companies were created by about 25% (from 10% to 12.5%).
• To increase the creation of innovative companies with a technological basis.
• To simplify the legal and administrative framework in which companies carry out their activities.
• To boost the non-technological capacity for innovation and the adoption of information and communications technologies in all companies.
• To increase the international presence of Spanish companies.
• To stimulate the growth of companies and their competitiveness.

In order to achieve these goals, a series of measures were drawn up around various themes: legal and administrative matters, finance, employment, education and the enhancing of innovation.
With regard to measures intended to foster the incorporation of companies, we should focus on two specific examples.

• The extension of remote electronic processing, the CIRCE system commissioned for SLNEs, to all Limited Liability Companies. This was achieved through Royal Decree 1,332 dated November 21st, 2006.
• The extension of the network of Advice and Processing Kick-Off Points, offices providing advisory, information and remote electronic processing services for the creation of companies by Spanish entrepreneurs. It currently has more than 650 offices distributed over fifteen of the seventeen Regions in Spain.