EU floats growth plan: Aim power hose of cash at oldsters, web start-ups
You'd best make your own jobs, folks...
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The European Commission's new action plan that encourages entrepreneurship in order to boost economic growth says that member states should target their support at the sections of society least likely to be sitting on beanbags in Shoreditch.
Groups such as seniors, migrants, the unemployed and women should be encouraged into entrepreneurship, said the report. And it is to those groups that member states should be gearing government funding and education opportunities, says the memo Unleashing Europe's entrepreneurial potential to bring back growth, released Wednesday.
Pitched as a beneficial way for governments to foster start-ups, the European Commission suggested that targeting groups that are less likely to be self-funding project or to be touting their ideas around venture capitalist pitching sessions would reach untapped human resources.
The use of ICT in non-tech businesses in other sectors also had a beneficial effect, the report claimed. Business that embraced digital grew twice as fast, it states:
ICT is the key source of growth for national economies and European SMEs grow two to three times faster when they embrace ICT.
Highlighting the short life cycles of web start-ups and their tendency to boom and bust, the memo suggested that governments should tailor support specially to web start-ups, by introducing small funding earlier, for example. It also suggested web start-ups should be encouraged as a low-cost, low-entry barrier way for entrepreneurs to begin a business.
The idea is that unleashing Europe's entrepreneurial potential will bring back growth.
The Commission notes a drop in both the number of Europeans interested in entrepreneurship - a fall from 45 per cent to 37 perc ent between 2009 and 2012. That should be rectified, it said. Entrepreneurial spirit is higher in America, where 63 per cent aspire to set up their own businesses.
Other measures involved entrepreneurship more generally, increasing financial incentives and reducing regulation and making access to new finance easier for the "honest" bankruptee - the report said it was important to give people "a second chance after bankruptcy". ®
COMMENTS
Horse before cart
As usual for the EU. They think that economic recovery wil come from having more online cake sites.
Your business will work if it is based on a good idea that you can sell to people. Adding a web interface will make no difference whatsoever to a crap idea that no-one wants.
What is it with these eurocrats that they still think that IT = magic wand. The failure rate for web startups suggests that this area should be left to the margins and not become mainstream economic growth policy.
And if they really want to boost small businesses in the UK the best thing they could do would be to get HMRC off their backs.
I don't think we should sponsor migrants at all.
As a working taxpayer I can't see why I should pay to encourage *more* people to move to our country when we don't have sufficant jobs for the people who live here already.
I can see why employers would be happy with more immigration; foreign workers from eastern europe are willing to work for less, which lets them reduce competition and thus the cost of their wage bill.
However, I don't see how it benefits either me or the country in general.
The European Commission at it again...
They keep trying this stunt. Over 10 years ago they tried to make Europeans tech innovators and leaders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Strategy
There is obviously a lot of problems that the EC/EU could help fix, like reducing red tape, but their idea of a top down solution to Europe's lack of innovation will not work. It never has.
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