The Small Business Act for Europe

Main priorities of the SBA

• Promoting entrepreneurship
• Less regulatory burden
• Access to finance
• Access to markets and internationalisation

Access the full text of the Small Business Act.

The SBA Review

The SBA Review, launched in February 2011, is a major landmark in tracking the implementation of the Small Business Act. It aims to integrate the SBA with the Europe 2020 strategy. Six of the seven Europe 2020 Flagship Initiatives will help SMEs achieve sustainable growth.

Public Consultation on the new SBA (2014)

The aim of the public consultation is to gather feed-back and ideas on new actions to support SMEs.

• See the Report on the Public Consultation on the new SBA

Individual replies received via EU Survey

• Organisations registered in the Transparency Register

• Respondents who asked to remain anonymous

• Others

Please note that the replies of 271 respondents who asked to maintain their confidentiality are not published here.

Governance structure of the SBA

1. Network of SME Envoys
2. SME Assembly

'Think Small First' Principle

Thanks to the 'Think Small First' Principle, SMEs' interests are taken into account at a very early stage of policy making. This helps the EU develop SMEs-friendly legislation. The tools enabling effective application of the principle are:

• the SME Test
• the use of specific provisions in legislation avoiding disproportionate burden on SMEs
• consulting and listening to SMEs
• the work of SME Envoys
• the use of Common Commencement dates - business-related legislation comes into force on a limited number of fixed dates, making life easier for SMEs

Implementation of the SBA

The SME Performance Review is one of the main tools the Commission uses to monitor and assess countries' progress in implementing the SBA.

Consulting and listening to SMEs

• Consulting – the Commission consults the European Parliament and the EU Member States' governments before drawing up proposals, such as the SBA. SMEs can voice their opinion through the network of SME Envoys.
• Listening – the Commission operates two mechanisms to test the impact of EU legislation and programmes on SMEs. Both mechanisms are managed by the Enterprise Europe Network:
  • in advance via SME panels - SME Panels consult SMEs on forthcoming EU legislation and policies.
  • retrospectively via the SME feedback mechanism – the Enterprise Europe Network partners collect the views and feedback from SMEs on a broad range of EU policy initiatives, actions, legislation or programmes related to the internal market.

Supporting documents

• The SBA Act for Europe (2008)
• The SBA Review (2011)
• Results of the Public Consultation – The Top Ten most burdensome EU legislative acts for SMEs (345kB, 2013)
• Report on Less regulatory burden for SMEs (2011)
  • Report of the Expert Goup: Models to Reduce the Disproportionate Regulatory Burden on SMEs (389 kB, 2007) and annex (389 kB)
• Thinking Big for Small Businesses
• Report of the Expert Group Think Small First - Considering SME interests in policy-making (238 kB, 2009)
• European Charter for Small Enterprises (2000)