Brussels, 29/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - Around 250 participants (from 38 countries) attended the Conference on the European Charter for Small Enterprises in Luxemburg on 15 and 16 June to examine how to make life of small enterprises easier and to boost economic activity of SMEs. On the agenda were issues highlighted in the 2005 report (EUROPE 8889): education for entrepreneurship, better regulation, especially bankruptcy law and impact assessment, and skills shortages. The Charter process benchmarks progress by Member States in improving the environment for SMEs and facilitates the exchange of good practices. The Luxembourg conference allowed for cases about learning from each other to be presented. In the preparations for the new enlarged entrepreneurship programme, Sweden took inspiration from Spain, Finland and Norway. Hungary has built its mid-term enterprise development programme, the Széchenyi Enterprise Development Programme, partly on the Charter. Luxemburg has taken inspiration from Belgium and the Netherlands in appointing a national committee for administrative simplification. Approaches on how to effectively use the Charter in national and regional policymaking were presented by Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania and Malta. Two Finnish good practice cases were presented. To support growth companies, Finnvera, Finpro, TEKES and the T&E Centres have formed a partnership, Quartet cooperation, to offer their expertise as a combined set of services. The global entrepreneurship education strategy was also presented since Finland is among the few countries that explicitly include entrepreneurship education in comprehensive education. SME Envoy Maive Rute added: “The Commission serves as a catalyst in this collective exercise which is leading to tangible improvements in the environment for small enterprises.” Further information: (http: //europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/events/charter/conf_2005.htm).