Encouraging entrepreneurial vision: Committee of the Regions launches the European Entrepreneurial Region award

The EU Committee of the Regions (CoR) has launched the European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) award, a pilot scheme designed to identify and reward EU regions with outstanding entrepreneurial vision and to encourage local and regional authorities to do more to promote small businesses across Europe.

Speaking at the launch of the EER on 7 October during the annual OPEN DAYS European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussels, CoR President Luc Van den Brande said: "This year's theme for the OPEN DAYS is 'global challenges, European responses.' With the European Entrepreneurial Region scheme, the CoR, in partnership with the European Commission, has launched a new springboard for growth and jobs at the regional level. It is a concrete response to the urgent need to support small and medium sized enterprises which are source of growth, jobs and innovation and 98% of which operate at a strictly local level, often having very strong socio-economic attachments to their territory."

European Commission Vice-President responsible for Enterprise and Industry, Günther Verheugen, who launched the EER with President Van den Brande, said: "'Think Small First' is the Leitmotiv of the Small Business Act. Now we have to translate our ambition into reality. I warmly welcome that members of the Committee of the Regions will be in the driving seat to make the EU a world class environment for SMEs."

The EER is open to every region of Europe, regardless of its size, population or wealth. Any region, city or local authority that has the political mandate to draw up and implement its own strategy for boosting entrepreneurship at the local and regional level is eligible to apply for the award; each year, up to three regions from across the EU will be granted the right to call themselves 'Entrepreneurial Region of the Year', based on the quality, efficacy and long-term success of their entrepreneurial vision and the political will to implement it.

Each region's vision will be assessed by a jury of CoR members, representatives from the European Commission and from business organisations BusinessEurope, UEAPME and Eurochambres, all of which have backed the scheme. The jury will take into account the specific characteristics of the candidate region concerned (such as its competences in the area of business policy, its entrepreneurial potential and the sustainability and credibility of its proposals), as well as the overall presentation of its so-called 'Vision Plan'. The first 'Entrepreneurial Region of the Year' labels will be awarded for 2011 and 2012 at ceremony to be held in February 2010. Regions wishing to apply for the award must do so via the EER website by 15 January 2010.

President Van den Brande added: "One of the main aims of the EER scheme is to help encourage regions to play their part in implementing and promoting the Small Business Act for Europe (SBA), in turn creating a more dynamic, competitive and sustainable Europe. Although the EER project was not initially intended as a response to the current economic crisis, the aim is that it will stimulate local and regional authorities to look at new ways of generating long-term economic growth through entrepreneurship. Many regions are still drafting local recovery plans and implementing additional measures in order to respond to the current crisis and its massive socio-economic impact, and the EER should encourage them to look more closely at the specific needs of SMEs and develop a real partnership between local and regional authorities and economic actors in their regions."

For more information, please contact:

Chris Jones

+32 0)2 546 87 51

+32 (0)2 282 20 85