Candidate countries sign up to help realise Lisbon goals
An agreement signed by all 13 candidate countries at the end of April commits them to the goals of enterprise policy in the EU and includes them in the benchmarking exercises monitoring the Lisbon summit's target of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010. Signed in Maribor, Slovenia, the Maribor declaration endorses the European charter for small enterprises. It allows the signatories to be included in the charter implementation reports, as well as analytical instruments such as the innovation scoreboard and, from next year, the Competitiveness report and the Enterprise scoreboard. These will allow them to benchmark their performances in these areas alongside the 15 EU Member States. The declaration also opens up opportunities for the countries to participate in the 2001 to 2005 multi-annual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship. Tangible benefits will include access to financial instruments managed by the European investment fund and the use of business support services supplied through the Euro info centre network. These should help to assist the growth of entrepreneurship in the countries, which representatives said was being hindered by a lack of access to finance.