As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten lives and livelihoods, many hard-hit European companies face an uncertain future. Since 2008, Europe has been experiencing the effects of the worst economic crisis in 70 years: European Union data show that European companies added more than € 400 billion in debt over the first half of 2020, compared to € 289 billion in the whole of 2019 For the first time in Europe, there are more than 25 million unemployed and, in most Member States, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) strive to return to pre-crisis levels.
More entrepreneurs are needed for Europe to return to economic growth and higher levels of employment.
Entrepreneurship is the effort to create, own and commercialize an idea, technology, product or service, and the risks and rewards that this entails.
Entrepreneurship, today, is taught: there are clear rules, tools and procedures that entrepreneurs can learn, and at Silicon Valley, venture capitalist Tim Draper has established the Draper University of Heroes to do just that. Still, it is a strong driver of economic growth by creating new companies and jobs, opens new markets, and promotes new skills and abilities.
In Greece, as in Europe, SMEs are the power cells of the economy. Greek SMEs constitute the vast majority of all companies (99.9% and 99.8%, respectively). This picture did not show particular fluctuations in the years of crisis, implying that the structure of the Greek economy, in terms of business size, remained virtually unchanged.
According to provisional data for 2019, SMEs in the commercial non-financial business economy in Greece numbered about 780,000 in total. The Greek market is fragmented and small entrepreneurship associated with a lack of capital, export weakness, opaque governance, technological backwardness, extensive tax evasion, limited investment in human resources and undeclared work. All those do not contribute to the strengthening of our productive country.
Since our national goal is to create a new productive business model for the Greek economy, it is urgent to focus our efforts on SMEs' organizational and practical reconstruction. The bet for Greek entrepreneurship is for SMEs to acquire all those characteristics that will make them internationally competitive and join domestic and international production networks and value chains.
The Europe 2020 strategy responds to these changes by laying the foundations for future growth and competitiveness, which will be intelligent, sustainable and inclusive and meet the primary challenges of our society.
Correcting past problems and launching a more sustainable development for the EU in the future is a shared responsibility of the Member States and the EU institutions.
Recognizing that our economies are closely intertwined, the EU is reshaping its economic governance to ensure better political responses to current and future challenges.
In a nutshell: the principle of 'small business priority' must become Lydia a cornerstone of European and national policies.