Europe's next leaders: the Start-up and Scale-up Initiative

Key points:

According to the key findings from a 2016 public consultation carried out by the Commission: start-ups looking to scale up still face too many regulatory and administrative barriers especially in cross-border situations, for both start-ups and scale-ups too few opportunities exist for potential partners, and accessing finance is one of the biggest barrier to scaling up.  In this Opinion, The EESC welcomes the European Commission's (EC) Start-up and Scale-up Initiative and the actions proposed which aim to remove key barriers, but stresses that not all high-growth enterprises are high-tech enterprises and that action is needed across sectors.

Other relevant EESC opinions:

• Innovation as a driver of new business models (INT/778)
• Financial ecosystem/social enterprises (INT/770)
• SBA experiences in the USA and EU (INT/755)
• Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan (INT/679)
• An action plan to improve access to finance for SMEs (INT/632)
• Competitiveness Programme (INT/619)
• Social Enterprise (INT/589)
• Diverse forms of enterprise (INT/447)
• Additive manufacturing (CCMI/131)
• Amendment EuVECA and EuSEF (ECO/413)
• Promoting innovative and high growth firms (ECO/403)
• Action Plan on Capital Markets Union (ECO/384)
• Access to finance for SMEs (ECO/372)
• Finance for business/alternative supply mechanisms (ECO/361)
• Circular Economy package (NAT/676)

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat