EU Policy Areas

Enterprise

The Lisbon European Council held in March 2000, set the European Union a new strategic objective for the coming decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

EU Enterprise Policy aims to enhance the competitiveness of European enterprises and meet the challenges of globalisation and the new knowledge-driven economy. This is achieved by helping to create an environment in which firms can thrive through:

• Enhancing the growth and competitiveness of business in a knowledge-based internationalised economy
• Promoting entrepreneurship
• Simplifying and improving the administrative and regulatory framework for business so that research, innovation and business creation in particular can flourish
• Improving the financial environment for business, especially SMEs
• Giving business easier access to EU support services, programmes and networks and improving the coordination of these facilities

The recent Report from the High Level Group chaired by Wim Kok, "Facing the Challenge" (November 2004), assessed the current situation and identified measures which could form a consistent strategy for the European economies to achieve the Lisbon objectives and targets: reducing the total administrative burden; improving the quality of legislation; facilitating the rapid start-up of new enterprises; and creating an environment more supportive to businesses.

Regarding funding, each year the Commission's Enterprise Directorate-General publishes a report presenting the objectives of its annual work programme and the grant programme linked to it. It includes a list of planned actions and a list of ad-hoc grants.