VVD Eurofractie on-line

Speech to the occasion of the OECD SME Conference 2004,
Istanbul , June 3
by Elly Plooij- van Gorsel, Member of the European Parliament

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, friends new and old (which includes since many years the Chairman!) :

In my experience, the single most important characteristic common to all successful SME's is their intense concentration on “the critical path” – what they have to do NEXT in order to survive and grow. In other words, successful entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs are – by the ineluctable process of natural competitive selection - practical people with little time for idle talk or utopian thinking. Or, as a friend observed to me many years ago, a successful entrepreneur is somebody who knows when NOT to pay the rent.

This being the reality of those we are trying to help, let me offer two points this morning for your consideration :

+ First, any recommendations adopted by this Symposium, and indeed any SME policies and programmes adopted by public authorities anywhere in the world, must pass the practicality test : is this something an SME could and would take advantage of RIGHT NOW if it existed. A short list of actions which pass this test will be much more valuable than a long list of ideas which do not.

+ So, Second point: The Global Trust Centre project, which I represent here today, passes this test.

The problem we are trying to solve with this project is straightforward : There is a growing “digital divide” between a growing number of SMEs and other enterprises, particularly much larger ones, who have at their disposal the security tools necessary to protect themselves and their customers from cyber-crime when engaged in e-commerce. Just to be clear, we are talking here especially about 5 practical issues :

1. Data confidentiality, availability and integrity : This is the most basic condition of trust necessary for e-commerce. No potential party to a transaction will proceed without confidence that the data essential to that transaction will be available, accurate and complete, and used only for the intended purpose.

2. Consumer and merchant authentication : Cyberspace is infinite. How can we be sure others are really who they say they are ? How will they know that “we” are really “us” ?

3. Non-repudiation and liability in the case of fraud : What are the rights and obligations of parties when things go wrong, keeping in mind that there may be many intermediaries between buyer and seller in cyberspace, and keeping in mind that cyber-transactions may cross one or more jurisdictional borders.

4. Costs from failure : Who pays when things go wrong ?

5. Interoperability requirements : Patchworks of different systems and technical solutions create costs for firms and may – especially in the case of SMEs, and more especially in the case of SMEs from distant or lagging regions – hinder them from market-entry, thus widening the “security divide”.

Because the necessary security tools to deal with these issues are – by the very nature of the internet - always built around networks based on conditional access or participation, and because there is now a proliferation of such networks around the world, SMEs are increasingly confused about what systems to join or participate in, and increasingly frustrated in their attempts to find out and decide. “Who”, they may well ask, “should we trust to solve our trust problems ?”

The tool we propose to establish to help answer this question for them is a “clearing house” - or what we think of as a “Digital Trust Centre”, whose first task should be to document in one place the many different security and trust systems in existence around the world. That in itself would produce for SMEs a knowledge base which – I can assure you – is something none are going to produce for themselves NEXT.

Once this knowledge base is assembled, the various systems and tools can be evaluated for their applicability and success, thereby providing the NEXT step in the process by which an SME can decide which are most appropriate for its business

And in a further step, the Digital Trust Centre would then be in a position to act as a federator or mediator and honest broker in attempts to link different systems through cross-recognition and cross-certification. That would provide exponential value to any business wishing to take advantage of global cyber-markets.

In this scenario, we would then have created a truely global security resource for SMEs, available to them RIGHT NOW as the NEXT STEP when they decide they want to develop their businesses through e-commerce anywhere in the world, and realize that the adoption of security and trust tools are directly on that critical path.

How do we develop this resource ? It seems to me that a high-level consensus and common commitment to do so among the political and business leaders at this symposium and ministerial conference would be a pretty effective and practical NEXT STEP.

But then of course we will need to the engagement of practitioners with the technical know-how and organizational know-who necessary to propose viable solutions and the steps necessary to create them.

To conclude : SMEs operate in the real world. In order to help them, so must we. The Global Trust Project is still in its early stages. To take it forward, we now need to create a powerful – and truly global - “network effect” around it, attracting new partners from around the world who can bring commitment, influence in their spheres of endeavor, and relevant practical experience.

Chairman, I trust that – in this same spirit of practicality - my remarks have been sufficiently brief, to the point, and actionable.