(12) Throughout the European Union one major obstacle to competition is the almost complete lack of companies specialising in providing loan financing in the audiovisual sector.

| (3)All Member States:the establishment of a specialised management company is required to perform the activities of management of unit trusts and investment companies,only firms having their registered office in the Community can act as depositories of the assets of investment funds.BG: for banking services as listed below:acceptance of deposits and other repayable funds from the public,lending, such as consumer credit, mortgage credit, factoring and financing of commercial transactions,payment and money transmission services,guaran ...[+++]tees, excluding guarantees of the State Treasury,financial leasing:foreign banks wishing to establish themselves in the Republic of Bulgaria must be duly authorised under their national law and must not be prohibited from performing banking activities in their country of origin and in the countries where they operate.

Throughout the EU one major obstacle to competition is an almost complete lack of companies specialising in providing loan financing in the audiovisual sector.

The issue does not, therefore, solely concern access to credit and consumer protection, but also economic sustainability, with families at severe risk of falling prey to the dictates of monetary policies and to the artificial temptations of consumerism.

6. Recommends that, when a country decides to carry out a privatisation, the Commission should advise that it be done if possible by substantially involving domestic investors and that it should devote particular attention to ‘small’ decentralised solutions which are worked out by developing countries and whose beneficiaries are small and medium-sized undertakings (SMUs) and micro-enterprises, which play an essential part in the economic development of developing countries, create many of the jobs and generate a substantial proportion of national income, whereas ‘large-scale’ solutions which seek to bring about take-overs of State-owned enterprises by mult ...[+++]inational corporations and groups often have adverse side-effects; and to give special attention also to the possible role of European small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in all aspects of cooperation programmes; believes that European SMEs possess specialised knowledge and experience relevant to these programmes, but are often left out due to lack of knowledge about programme participation possibilities and lack of visibility to third country partners; recommends that appropriations are provided for the provision of advisory services and training for small and medium-sized enterprises in the countries of Latin America and Asia by older volunteer experts from the European Union who come under the ESSN (European Senior Services Network);

The Commission proposal does not differentiate between, for example, a laundry product made and marketed by an international company in large quantities for a mass consumer market, and on the other hand a niche product made in small quantities often by SMEs for specialised applications.