Better environment for enterprises
The European Commission has adopted a Communication on a 'Better environment for enterprises', which will be presented to the Competitiveness Council on 26 November. It contains a set of 70 national targets, put forward by the Member States. The targets aim to accelerate progress towards the goal of making Europe the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010. Designed to improve policy monitoring, spur progress and facilitate discussion, they are a first attempt to develop a comprehensive approach and give a clear signal to European businesses that concrete commitments are in place to improve the business environment. 'The adoption of these policy targets shows that Member States are committed to pursue the Lisbon vision of greater European competitiveness and a better business environment,' said EU Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society, Erkki Liikanen 'I am delighted that the Member States have worked together with the Commission to develop this initiative and that many of them have announced targets. From now on, the task will be to ensure concrete implementation and follow-up.' The targets relate to several business policy issues covered by the Enterprise Policy Scoreboard, ranging from innovation to the regulatory environment, access to finance, to entrepreneurship and human capital. They are linked to the very specific indicators used by the scoreboard and are intended to guide policy, improve monitoring of progress and facilitate policy discussions. For example, in the field of entrepreneurship, quantitative targets cover issues such as the number of new enterprises created per year and the number of self-employed people.