The startup phenomenon won a firm place on the EU agenda a few years ago, with voluntary initiatives such as the European Commission’s Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) and the 2013 Startup Manifesto. But unlike other policy areas, the EU has not really been able to develop a single startup strategy for the block.
As Stefano Firpo, chief of the Italian Minister of Economic Development's Technical Secretariat, has pointed out startup policies in Europe are still carried out on a national basis. Hence the impetus of Startup Italy.
But this week, GEW 2015 might provide the additional push needed to bring cohesive entrepreneurship policies across the continent.
On the second day of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the European Parliament and the European Young Innovators Forum (EYIF) will unveil the “Grow Global” campaign for 2016.
Among the policy influencers introducing strategies with the EYIF – to help European entrepreneurs to realize their potential to scale within Europe and globally – will be Adina Valean (Romania), vice president of the European Parliament; Elżbieta Bieńkowska (Poland), European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs; and Isidro Laso Ballesteros (Spain), head of sector at Startup Europe, European Commission.
The Grow Global campaign is expected to build support for the recently launched European Startup Act 2020, a strategic plan has laid out the following key objectives for the European startup ecosystem by 2020:
- 250,000 new startup jobs per year;
- 10,000 new startups per year;
- 4 startups per year in global top ten lists;
- 2,000 new seed stage funded startups per year; and
- 9.5 percent of total European GDP being generated by startup activity.
“The European Startup Act 2020 will be the framework for EYIF’s negotiations with the EU institutions and national governments to create a Europe for entrepreneurs,” explained Kumardev Chatterjee, President of EYIF.
The European Startup Act 2020 has already been presented at various high profile events such as at the Expo Milano, at the ICT 2015 in Lisbon, to a working group at the Council of EU, at the State of Europe high-level roundtable, among other audiences. The Act calls for EU to implement new policies for the following five areas:
- Accessible Finance for Entrepreneurs: simplify regulation in the area of alternative finance and expand European programs funding entrepreneurship, whilst encouraging foreign VC investment in Europe.
- Simplified Startup Creation: accelerate the process of harmonization in registration procedures, minimum capital requirements and VAT regimes, with the end goal of creating a single European private company format, which would act as the main vehicle for the incorporation of startups.
- Entrepreneurial Exchange: facilitate efficiency of national-level programs to attract foreign entrepreneurs, though, for example, the extension of the EU Blue Card to entrepreneurs.
- E-Skills for all: expand the campaign to equip the labor market with the necessary digital skills to fill this talent gap affecting growing digital startups.
- Geo-Unblocking: modernize copyright law and implement a European standard, as well introduce a targeted competition policy ensuring the prohibition of agreements for licenses which prohibit sales of services outside licensed territories.
We look forward to monitoring the progress of these proposals in Europe’s governance structure for startups.
Photo credit: Flickr