Between the 18th and 20th of November 2024 in Budapest, EFB attended the SME Envoy Network meeting and the SME Assembly organised by the European Commission.
At the SME Envoy Network meeting during the point on SME policy in Hungary, Mr Jesús Casado, European Family Businesses’ Secretary General intervened to ask about the measures planned for business transfers in the foreseeable future. His question raised a vital point: business transfers are critical to European competitiveness and job retention so how will the topic be approached by the European Commission in the next mandate and how will member states tackle the issue? EFB will continue to call for discussions on business transfers as a priority.
Furthermore, the European Commission opened a debate on the Single Market Strategy and invited those in attendance to highlight the biggest issues within the single market and suggestions on how to approach them. Simplification of regulation, reduction of administrative burden and its cost, implementation of existing rules, and the need for concrete actions focusing on the free movement of goods and services were among the points made. We need to prepare the European economy to meet the challenges posed by the changing geopolitical situation globally and competitiveness on the world stage.
The Schumpeter lecture given by Professor Johan Wiklund called for a focus on entrepreneurship and innovation policies and the need to support Europe’s entrepreneurs as they seek to innovate and increase their competitiveness.
On the second day of the SME Assembly, there were many interesting and insightful discussions that EFB had the opportunity to attend. One such panel on SME Enterprise explored the relationship between competitiveness and sustainability and whether businesses can be sustainable and competitive. It offered interesting insights into the importance of companies having their sustainability aims.
An interesting policy workshop on scale-up financing further echoed the thoughts of Mr Mario Draghi’s report regarding how Europe has not kept pace with innovation in comparison to the USA and China. The importance of identifying and removing regulatory obstacles to enable SMEs to have access to finance for them to scale up within the EU’s single market was also made.
The third day of the SME Assembly began by giving an SME Competitiveness and Performance Review. Crucial points on employment, growth and productivity in SME s were explored.
Overall, some important recommendations arose from this event namely, better regulation and reduction of administrative burden, the need for sustainability – both human and environmental, scaling up, access to finance, highlighting best practices, streamlining the legal framework of public procurement, simplifying the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).