The analysis provided by the Policy Department for Economic, Scientific, and Quality of Life Policies at the request of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) of the European Parliament is an overview of the current SME policies and an analysis of the coherence between these policies and Europe’s long term industrial strategy, in particular the Green Deal and the Digital Transition strategies.
According to this paper, EU policies have been always guided by the Think Small First principle, since SMEs are considered the backbone of the EU economy. Despite this, the SME strategy for sustainable and digital Europe enacted in March 2020, represents the first significant statement of SME strategy in several years although if we look at the several major EU programmes and budgets, there was already a focus on SMEs that will be underpinned in the next time frame (2021-2027).
Even before the European Green Deal (EGD), several environmental policies took place to support SMEs moving to a “green” and sustainable future. The responses to these policies have been different depending on the kind of companies (innovators, early adopters, followers, or laggards).
Regarding the Digital Transition (DT), since the EU Commission claims that the EU businesses have been slow to embrace the digital technologies, this long-term strategy acts as a big deal to support SMEs, especially the highly innovative start-ups and the early adopters.
In order to smooth the twin transition to digitalisation and green economy, the author highlights the importance to design different approaches depending on the business type and size of the firms since the SMEs are not a homogeneous group.
The paper closes with the consideration that both the EGD and the DT strategies should be supported by a bottom-up approach where local and regional organisations, social and economic actors, public and private will complement the top-down EU policy initiatives.
Read the whole paper here.
Source: European Parliament
