European Commission The European Charter for Small Enterprises Edward TERSMETTE Enterprise and Industry Directorate General

2 The European Charter for Small Enterprises -Created at the request of the Lisbon European Council in 2000 as a first concrete step on the Lisbon agenda -Self-commitment of Heads of State of the Member States to improve the administrative and regulatory framework for SMEs -A tool to structure and systematically improve SME-policy in 10 Charter action lines

Charter signatories 2000: Original signatories and Norway 2002: Candidate countries 2003: Western Balkans (sorry, old Map..) 2004: Moldova and the Euro-Med Charter

4 The Charter action lines 1)Education and training for entrepreneurship 2)Cheaper and faster start-up 3)Better legislation and regulation 4)Availability of skills 5)Improving online access

5 The Charter action lines 6)Getting more out of the single market 7)Taxation and financial matters 8)Strengthening the technological capacity of SEs 9)Making use of successful e-business models and developing top-class business support 10)Developing stronger, more effective representation of small enterprises’ interests at Union and national level

6 The Charter good practice exercise -MS submit their good practices in SME- policies yearly to the Commission -the most relevant ones are published and translated to foster exchange and learning from each other -a selection of them is presented at the annual Charter conference -Good practices are made accessible via online- catalogue at: gp

7 The 2007/2008 good practice exercise Participation by all Member States + Norway Charter focus areas 2007: (1) Education and training for entrepreneurship (2) Better legislation and regulation, especially how to think small first (3) Top class small business support, especially support to internationalise

8 The Charter conference June 2008 in Bled/Brdo, Slovenia -Target group: policy makers, business organisations, business support organisations, entrepreneurs -300 participants expected from the Member States, Candidate countries, countries from the Mediterranean and Western Balkan and from European regions -co-organised together with the Slovenian presidency

9 Western Balkans Developed a series of indicators to measure performance National reports and a national « consultation » meeting G4 group: EC, OECD, ETF (education, training and HRD issues), EBRD (access to finance issues) Plus an independent evaluation

10 Montenegro 2007 report: ranked in second place with Serbia and FYRo Macedonia. First place: Croatia. Third group: Albania, BiH, Kosovo/UNSCR 1244 April 2009: new « G4 » report to be issued, will track progress and report more specifically on innovation and competitiveness. Bilateral meeting in Montenegro in September Bilateral meeting Montenegro would benefit from a wider participation

11 The Charter conference 2008 The conference Workshops: (1) Education and training for entrepreneurship (2) Better legislation and regulation, especially how to think small first (6) Top class small business support, especially support to internationalise (4) Best of other Charter areas (5) Successful promotion of entrepreneurship (3) Fostering high growth innovative SMEs

12 The Charter conference 2008 Where to register? Website and Online registration at: enterprise_policy/charter/conf2008