Recital 2

(2)In an increasingly digitalised world, digital tools are essential to ensure the continuity of business operations and companies’ interactions with registers and authorities. In order to increase trust and transparency in the business environment and facilitate companies’ operations and activities in the internal market, in particular in relation to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (‘SMEs’), as defined in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC ⁵ , it is crucial that companies, authorities and other stakeholders have access to reliable company information that can be used without burdensome formalities in a cross-border context.