Recoge: 1. Business creation in Europe - 2. Support for entrepreneurs starting very small businesses - 3. Financing very small businesses startups - 4. Taxation of very small businesses entrepreneurs - 5. Social security coverage for very small business entrepreneurs.

For many years, small and medium-sized enterprises have occupied an important place in the strategy of socio-economic development of the European Union. This is due to the fact that these entities have many important functions related to, among others, creating a significant share of the national income and jobs, introducing innovations and causing many other effects that positively influence the level of competitiveness of the European economy. In order to ensure favorable conditions for the development of the SME sector in the European Union at the central level, as well as at the level of individual countries and regions, numerous assistance programs are developed in the form of specific support instruments available for the smallest entities. Currently, the European Union is entering the new 2014-2020 programming period, which is associated with the implementation of the principles of the Europe 2020 Strategy. This perspective will be associated with the possibility of the participation of entrepreneurs in a number of projects and the use of many support instruments, both financial, as well as non-financial. As in the previous years, however, certain actions will have to be taken and the acquisition of specific skills useful in efforts to absorb the EU assistance will be required. At the same time, exploiting the potential of the environment in the 2014-2020 perspective will be associated with changes in the conditions for the functioning and development of many European small and medium-sized enterprises. The monograph is devoted to the above-presented matters. Its aim is the presentation, analysis and evaluation of selected issues which, according to the authors, will be important for development processes of small and medium-sized enterprises in the 2014-2020 perspective. The book consists of fourteen chapters, which are divided thematically into three separate parts. The first part concentrates on the external conditions for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the latest strategic perspective of the European Union. The second part of the monograph emphasizes the challenges and changes in management systems which will largely determine the functioning of the SME sector in the coming years. The third, and last, part of the monograph focuses on selected determinants of building the competitiveness of businesses in the SME sector. The monograph is addressed primarily to managers and owners of small and medium-sized enterprises, along with undergraduate and graduate students, as well as post-graduate business students. At the same time, we hope that this book will be also appreciated in the scientific community, enriching the debate on the future challenges in managing the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as inspiring discussion and further research in this field.

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,3, University of Lincoln, course: B.A. European Business, language: English, abstract: The Lisbon European Council of March 2000 set the European Union a new strategic objective for the coming years:to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. It is considered that Europe’s competitiveness and economic progress is strong dependent on its small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the key-source for job creating as well as for searching for new business ideas and innovative solutions, its main driver for entrepreneurship. For this reason, the European Council endorsed the “think small first” principle as one way to progress towards the Lisbon objectives. The idea of the small business has captured the imagination of the public and politicians over past years. They agree in the point that to meet the challenge of new integrated Europe requires a better business environment within the Internal Market, including the lightest possible administrative and regulatory burdens for small businesses and a better access to finance resources as well as creating of simple and effective legislation. It also requires a revolution in attitudes to entrepreneurship and to risk-taking processes, which will allow viewing failure as a part of experience, as an “opportunity to learn” from mistakes. They also emphasise the fact that small enterprises are normally more sensitive to changes in the business environment than large firms. They are the first to suffer if weighed down with excessive bureaucracy and creating new administrative burdens. And they are the first to flourish from initiatives such as decrease in taxation rate and promotion. My essay aims to answer the question to what extent the EU’s main market integration initiatives address the needs of SME’s and what should be done on the way to developing strong, competitive SMEs which would use all benefits from the Single European Market. It is important to define what we mean by SMEs before proceeding to answer these questions. For the purpose of this essay, SMEs are defined as non-subsidiary, independent firms, which employ less than 250 employees. We have to take into account the fact that this number may vary across national statistical systems. [...]

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic partnership, built through a series of binding treaties, that represents a unique form of co-operation among sovereign countries. The EU is composed of 28 member states, including most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and has helped to promote peace, stability, and economic prosperity throughout the European continent. The United States and the EU have a dynamic political partnership and share a huge trade and investment relationship. This book catalogues trade-related barriers that U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceive as disproportionately affecting their exports to the European Union (EU) relative to large exporters to the EU. This book also serves as a primer on the EU and provides a brief description of U.S.-EU relations that may be of interest to Congress.

The effects of recent institutional change within the European Union on small states have often been overlooked. Taking a number of small states as case studies, this innovative and sophisticated book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe.

This book sheds light on facilitating SME internationalisation and also presents a synthesis of the Conference discussions and the main outcome of the Conference: the "Athens Action Plan for Removing Barriers to SME Access to International Markets".