50The 18th, 19th and 22nd recitals of the SME Recommendation, as well as point 3.2 of the SME Guidelines, make it clear that the purpose of the independence criterion is to ensure that the measures intended for SMEs genuinely benefit the enterprises for which size represents a handicap and not enterprises belonging to a large group which have access to funds and assistance not available to competitors of equal size. It also follows that, in order to ensure that only genuinely independent SMEs are included, there has to be a way of eliminating legal arrangements in which SMEs form an economic group much stronger than such an SME. It must also be ensured that the definition is not circumvented on formal grounds.
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