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Abstract: Entrepreneurial activity contributes various benefits to a country, one of the most impactful gains being the growth of GDP. Because of that, it is important for policymakers to put in place policies, which encourage and foster entrepreneurial activity- both on a national as well as international level. On an international level, the EU plays a major role in supporting entrepreneurial activity in Europe. For that purpose, the EU institutions are enforcing entrepreneurship-related policies and are establishing programs and funds, which benefit European enterprises. Special emphasis is placed on supporting the entrepreneurial activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the backbone of the economy. SMEs represent more than 99% of all enterprises in a country, and they create two out of three jobs. Because of their importance, the EU strives to provide a suitable environment and support for them to grow and exist in the long run. EU member countries exploit the offered support to different extents, which means that the EU support affects European companies and member countries in different ways. In this thesis, we explored the role of the EU in connection to entrepreneurial support and activity. Based on our research, we found very noticeable differences between more and less developed EU countries in terms of the amount of exploited EU support. We discovered that most of the time, more developed EU countries tend to exploit EU entrepreneurial support to a bigger extent, than less developed countries do. That is because less developed countries often lack the ability to set up suitable programs that could qualify for EU funding. We also discovered that less developed countries tend to have higher levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity than more developed countries do. We have found that this is because citizens in these countries often create their businesses out of necessity, not so much because they perceived a good business opportunity. In less developed countries, where the economical state of the country is less stable and there is a lack of available job offers, citizens are pushed to entrepreneurship out of necessity in order to survive. Related to that, we also discovered that less developed countries dedicate more of their EU funds to SMEs than more developed countries do. But as they lack the proper entrepreneurial ecosystem, these enterprises often fail. Because of that, as it most often occurs out of necessity, high levels of entrepreneurial activity in a less developed country do not quite indicate a well-established national entrepreneurial system. Finally, based on all the data we collected and analyzed in this thesis we have found that entrepreneurial support offered by the EU has been increasing over the years. That is because in the last decades there has been a big increase in the number of programs and funds being established, which focus specifically on SMEs. The same can be seen with the number of entrepreneurial policies being enforced by the EU, as entrepreneurship became one of the main EU priorities.
Keywords: entrepreneurial support, entrepreneurship activity, EU funding, access to finance, economic development
Published in DKUM: 23.12.2021; Views: 789; Downloads: 79
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