Brussels, 08/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - What do small and medium sized enterprises in Europe need from future EU policy? This is the core question of a consultation the Commission launched on 8 September, lasting until 15 December, to help upgrade the EU's 2008 Small Business Act (SBA). The SBA aims to improve the overall approach to entrepreneurship, permanently anchor the “Think Small First” principle in policy making from regulation to public service and to promote the growth of SMEs by helping them tackle the remaining problems which hamper their development.
The European Commission, however, points out that European level business organisations and national government SMEs representatives (SME envoys) agreed last spring that the four existing pillars of the SBA should remain: access to finance; access to markets/internationalisation; entrepreneurship; better regulation; training and skills.
The public consultation is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/NewSBAsurvey2014 . (EH)