Helping European SMEs to grow: Start-up and scale-up initiatives for business ventures in the EU

Išsami analizė 06-06-2017

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute 99 of every 100 businesses, and employ two out of three employees in Europe. Some of them are high-growth firms that generate a disproportionately high number of new jobs. However, SMEs often face obstacles specific to their smaller size that can hamper their growth potential. The main recent initiatives undertaken to help European SMEs grow fall within the flagship initiatives of the Commission: the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the single market strategy, the digital single market, and the capital markets union. The EU also supports SMEs through a range of long-term programmes running in the 2014-2020 period, such as COSME, Horizon 2020 and the structural and investment funds.