European Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) employ around 100 million people and account for more than half of Europe’s GDP. SMEs are drivers of economic growth, key players in cross-sectoral and cross-regional value chains and enablers of innovation. They also have a central role in achieving Europe’s environmental and social goals. However, they are also the most vulnerable to the economic cycles and uninformed legislation. For this reason ECRN decided to make SMEs concerns a cross cutting theme across all its priority policy areas.
ECRN works to consolidate innovative industrial value chains that transcend the boundaries between sectors, players, technologies and countries and to facilitate the collaboration between regional authorities and local industries. Creating a favorable operating environment for SMEs it is essential the economic and social wellbeing of our societies.