Euromed Invest – Good practice in small business support 22/09/2011, Alexandria Tina Zournatzi

Goals – Learning from Good Practice Overview of European SME Policy (SBA) Main tools for accessing good practices in improving the business environment both in EU and MED countries Good practice databases (EU and MED) Your Europe Countries are encouraged to learn from each other to take up successful measures from other countries

Role of the European Commission Coordinate action of Member States Follow-up of MS performance with the help of indicators and targets Good Practice exchange Provide support to SMEs Financial instruments Funding programmes Advisory and support services Ensure SME-friendly legislation SBA

A Small Business Act for Europe From the European Charter to the SBA 2008 Communication A set of politically binding principles A package of concrete measures A monitoring mechanism, part of the Growth and Jobs strategy in order to 1.Improve the overall policy approach to entrepreneurship 2.Irreversibly anchor the Think Small First principle in policy-making 3.Promote SMEs growth and competitiveness

1.Entrepreneurship 2.2 nd chance 3.Think Small First 4.Supportive public administration 5.Public procurement + state aid 6.Access to finance 7.Single Market 8.Skills and Innovation 9.Enable SMEs to tackle environmental challenges 10.Access external markets The 10 principles of the SBA

Four priority areas: Smart regulation access to finance access to markets promoting entrepreneurship Enhanced governance 48 new actions The SBA Review

Enhanced governance: the network of the SME Envoys At European level: the EU SME Envoy listens to SMEs and their representatives and act as internal watchdog for EU policy making. On the ground: Member States have appointed their national SME Envoys (regional Envoys can be nominated)

Enhanced governance: Give SMEs a greater role SMEs will have their say with the SME Assembly: representatives of small businesses from all over the 27 Member States will gather yearly European SMEs representatives are part of the Network of the SME Envoys.

First SME Envoy meeting – Brussels 14 September 2010 Simplifying the business environment Target: start a business in 3 days at 100 Improving SMEs access to finance More bank loan guarantees and micro credit Increase SME participation in public procurement Instituting the « SME Test » for all new policies and legislation affecting business

Good Practice Exchange at the core of SME policy making SBA Conference (Budapest, May 2011) European Enterprise Awards Expert groups Good Practice Database rter/gp

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A Good Practice Main information example TitleBusiness mediation CountryHungary Description Late payments seriously aggravate the business conditions of Hungarian SMEs. Nevertheless, they resort to law suits or liquidation proceedings only in about half of their justified complaints, because of the slowness, expensiveness and excessive complexity of bureaucratic judicial proceedings. To improve the situation, the Ministry for Economy started promoting mediation among SMEs by financing 10 model mediation cases selected by trade associations. The partner in this program was the Hungarian Mediation Association (

Good practice exchange- EU Mediterranean partnership Euro-Med industrial cooperation Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Enterprise Annual progress reports On-line tools for implementing the Charter (guides, procedures, tool boxes, specialised info on each Charter line)

EuroMed Good Practice Database Charter coordinators encode EuroMed good practices Link: practices/database/euromed/index.cfm practices/database/euromed/index.cfm

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Criteria for good practice (for MED) Mandatory criteria The good practice should be particularly targeted at SMEs. It should exist already and have been implemented. It should have clearly identifiable aims and objectives. It should be adaptable and transferable.

A Good Practice Additional information Comments/testimonials by business organisation/entrepreneur Why is this measure a success? Problems that had to be overcome and lessons learned Information on the measures can be provided in the following languages

Criteria for good practice (continued) Optional criteria The practice should have delivered tangible results. It should include a communication strategy adapted to its target audience. It should foresee an evaluation of its results, preferably on the basis of predefined clear and measurable targets. It should be capable of being continuously improved. Over a range of relevant indicators, it should clearly out-perform other practices in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

Who is Your Europe – Business for? Jan Piotrowski Tiler from the South of Poland Many clients in Vienna Interested in setting up one–man company in Austria Speaks German Entrepreneurs, SMEs looking for business in other European countries

Your Europe – Business: Saving time by being well informed Practical guide on doing business in Europe Guide on rules, administrative steps at EU and national level! all EU-27 Plus Norway multilingual created jointly: EC & national authorities

EU & national content Chapters structure: legal requirements / administrative procedures programmes, initiatives personalised help, advice Legal texts, key documents Chapters content: Which department is in charge of what? How to: which form, which paper to fill in, in which order Jargon-free texts + deep links Highlight: e-Gov services Enterprise Europe Network partners Multilingual guide to information and online government services at EU and national level =

EU & national content 26 chapters (business life events) along the life-cycle of an enterprise per country: from setting up a business to handling bankruptcy & starting afresh For each chapter: The entrepreneurs problem Answer at EU level 23 languages Answer at national level National language(s) and EN

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Where to find more information SBA and SBA Review act/index_en.htm European Small Business Portal Your Europe Portal