There is therefore a need to continue efforts to consolidate financial resources through the use of financial engineering techniques and programmes (risk capital, mutual guarantee systems, etc.).

Loan guarantees, mutual guarantee systems and subordinate loans are suitable means of doing this.

Promotion of innovative practices in the field of better access of SMEs to loan financing (including mutual guarantee schemes, Round Table of Bankers and SMEs).

Promotion of innovative practices in the field of better access of SMEs, in particular small enterprises and those run by women, to loan financing (including mutual guarantee schemes, Community guarantee systems such as ELISE which are specifically directed towards small enterprises, Round Table of Bankers and SMEs). Promotion of equal treatment of equity capital and capital from outside sources.

IV. INVITES THE COMMISSION AND THE MEMBER STATES to: 1. improve the contribution of Community programmes and measures to the maintenance and creation of jobs by SMEs and craft enterprises; 2. consult one another and, where necessary, coordinate their action in favour of SMEs, in particular in the framework of concerted action initiated under the Integrated Programme in favour of SMEs and the craft sector, in order to promote the exchange of experience and good practices, including in the sphere of local initiatives; 3. ensure that organizations representing SMEs and the craft sector at European and national level are consulted when policies concerning them are framed, implemented and monitored; 4. coordinate the various Community, natio ...[+++]nal and local information networks more effectively, by recognizing, inter alia, the role of Euro-Info- Centres in providing enterprises, in particular SMEs, with Community information; 5. facilitate access to measures in favour of SMEs and the craft sector, in particular by keeping SMEs and craft enterprises apprised of the opportunities offered by Community, national or regional programmes and by simplifying the relevant procedures in order to facilitate their participation; 6. improve the operation of the internal market in order to enable small and medium-sized enterprises and craft enterprises to exploit all the opportunities offered by it, including in the public contracts sector, and to overcome any obstacles to internal trade; 7. encourage, where appropriate, the establishment of mutual guarantee arrangements among SMEs on a commercial basis.

The Round Table's proposals may be summarised as follows: With regard to bank loans: - the Round Table recommends that communication between banks and SMEs should be improved, bank staff should receive better training and the range of financial products should be better geared to the requirements of SMEs; - in order to increase access to loans, it also advocates wider use of the facilities offered by the guarantee funds and mutual guarantee schemes; - as regards the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the interest rebates on European Investment Bank (EIB) loans, the Round Table's main recommendations are: * to earmark, in the short term ...[+++], a sizeable proportion of EIF operations for SME funding; * to enable the EIF to operate flexibly to take account of the actual situation in each Member State, e.g. by assisting national guarantee schemes, including mutual guarantee schemes; * to make sure that it is the end beneficiaries, i.e. SMEs, that derive the full benefit from the advantages offered by the EIF and the system of interest rebates on EIB loans and that the intermediaries are specialised in funding SMEs; * to make sure that the job-creation condition to which the granting of interest rebates is subject is applied as flexibly as possible.