Despite the crucial role they play in regional development, craft enterprises and small businesses have gained little access to regional funds and programmes so far. This is due to a gener-alised lack of engagement from regional authorities, which wrongly prefer to concentrate their activities on a few larger, more visible and easier to manage projects, according to UEAPME, the European craft and SME employ-ers’ organisation. Meeting today (Friday) in Vienna, the General Assembly of UEAPME discussed the role of crafts and SMEs in regional development and how to enhance their access to EU programmes with Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, and his predecessor Danuta Hübner, now Chair of the Euro-pean Parliament’s Regional Development Committee. At the meeting, UEAPME presented a discussion paper (1) containing the organisation’s analysis of the role of SMEs in the regions, as well as a series of proposals for the next financial perspectives for the 2014-2020 term and for several existing financial instruments. Building on the lessons learnt so far, UEAPME called for the full application of the “Think Small First” principle at regional level, less red tape, more stakeholder involvement, more coherence between programmes and across levels. It also stressed the need to fund future-oriented activities and investments in competitiveness rather than consumption.
Load Google Translate
Regional funds and programmes are not reaching SMEs, warn UEAPME members
VERSION 1
Created on: Jun 29, 2010 7:16 AM by
Alistair Winning -
Last Modified:
Jun 29, 2010 7:17 AM
by Alistair Winning
Attributes
- theknode | The Drawer
- You have to be logged in to view the content of the Drawer. Please Login or Register.