International

This weekend I put the final touches to a report for the European Parliament on the retail trade in Europe. Things aren’t going well for this sector. Anyone can see the empty spaces in town centres, where independent shops have suddenly closed down. The process by which all town centres begin to look alike has been enormously accelerated by the economic crisis. Nobody wants this to happen, but it’s happening anyway. In my report I make a large number of recommendations as to how the diversity of shops could be maintained. For goodness’ sake no more shopping malls, especially of the ‘mega’, out-of-town variety. Let’s bring together whatever powers we can to save the small, independent shop.

This approach will take some getting used to for the European Parliament Internal Market Committee, which is more in the habit of talking about the advantages of economies of scale deriving from the single market, from which firms can benefit by no longer remaining dependent on the domestic market, ‘going European’ instead. That’s not always a bad thing, but not all businesses need to grow so big. In the SP we like to stay ‘human scale’, and this can go equally for firms and, in this case, shops. The range of shops shouldn’t be identical in every European city; already people complain that it doesn’t matter where you do your shopping in the Netherlands, that you find the same chain stores everywhere.

The social and cultural value of the small independent shop must be recognised at both the national and the European level. This is the shop where you still know the owner personally, where you find it perfectly natural to chat with other customers, and where you can find things you can’t find anywhere else. Without shops of that kind a town is no longer alive.

In my report I make a whole series of proposals aimed at saving the small shop. This begins with general measures to boost the number of customers: no increases in VAT, for example, one of the stupidest things our current government has done. As long as consumer confidence remains at rock bottom, you can do whatever you like, the retail sector will reflect this mood.

More specifically, it must be permitted to relieve the small shop of burdensome measures must be allowed, without Brussels standing in the way in the name of competition regulations. You should be able to agree with the landlords in a shopping street that rents for start-ups be lowered, and make this possible by local authorities offering special rent subsidies. The same should go for electricity charges. You should be able to vary municipal charges, charging the bigger concerns more. Policy regarding planning regulations should give local authorities the possibility of saying no to a major retail chain in order to give priority to independent shops, and Brussels must not be able to interfere with this.

The challenges for local authorities and others are daunting, even should Brussels prove cooperative. All local authorities are strapped for cash, which makes it hard to find money for the small shop. There are nevertheless sound possibilities. In Rotterdam, for example, a megalomaniac project is planned, to build a colossal shopping mall in the middle of the town. This would harm small shops just beyond the city centre which would find it impossible to pay the rents charged in a new mall of this kind and which would see their customers desert them in its favour. If we can successfully resist developments such as this, we’ll be taking an important step on the way to saving the small shop. Moreover, while scrapping a project like this often costs nothing, it would save a great deal of money, which could then be used for the real shopkeeper, the person who has his or her heart in the business and for whom I shall continue quietly to plug away.