The motto of the ministerial meeting was, “Be Innovative- Go International” and focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the review of the EUs political frame to strengthen SMEs, the “Small Business Act” adopted in 2008.
The Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, Trond Giske attended the meeting as SMEs is an area of great interest for Norway. SMEs constitute the body of the Norwegian industry as over 99 percent of companies in Norway have 100 employees or less.
Giske also used the opportunity to meet with Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani, as well as representatives from the Hungarian side.
– Creating a growth-friendly environment
As a consequence of the financial crisis, the financing ability of banks has dropped, which has taken its toll primarily on the SME sector.
Zoltán Cséfalvay, Minister of State for Strategy of the Ministry of National Economy in Hungary, summarized the meeting at a press conference and emphasized that the EU have to find new ways of financing, aside from banks. Equity financing, the inclusion of risk capital and resorting to pre-commercial public procurement were methods mentioned by Mr Cséfalvay.
According to the Minister, the most frequent thoughts of the session were that all should do their best in order “to create a growth-friendly environment,” in addition to restoring public finances and stabilising the financial sector. This makes it a priority issue to, “support SMEs in accessing financial sources,” underlined the Minister.
Simplification and smart regulation
The meeting was organized with different underlying topic discussions such as smart regulation- ways to strengthen the ‘Think Small First’ principle, e‐government, one stop‐shop solutions, ‘fitness check’ and simplification of European account framework.
One of the topics were also financing where the focus was on loan guarantee scheme, improving legal framework for venture capital funds and simplification of access to finance.
Internationalization was also a topic where a new strategy on the support of EU, SMEs in extra‐EU markets, strategy for globally competitive clusters and networks, as well as eliminating non‐tariff barriers and network‐building were discussed.