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Cities offer not only the business opportunities, but also the combination of services, support and infrastructure that entrepreneurs and small businesses need to thrive. City governments develop policies and programmes tailored to the specific needs of local entrepreneurs and small businesses.

We believe that, given the right support, entrepreneurs and SMEs are key to achieving the Europe 2020 goals. Some 99% of European businesses are SMEs and 90% of those employ fewer than 10 people. Two out of every three private sector jobs in Europe are provided my SMEs. Previous recessions have shown that new growth and jobs often come from smaller businesses. Entrepreneurship is therefore crucial for increasing the employment rate.

Entrepreneurship also fosters social and economic cohesion, in particular in cities where development is lagging behind, by stimulating economic activity and job creation and helping integrate the unemployed or other disadvantaged groups into work.

The needs of small businesses and entrepreneurs vary widely, as do the environments in which they operate. The European Small Business Act calls for policies relating to SMEs ‘to fully recognise this diversity and fully respect the principle of subsidiarity’. Cities are therefore ideally placed to identify the most appropriate strategies and to create favourable environments for entrepreneurs and small business to flourish. They do so through facilitating networking opportunities, managing business incubators and developing synergies between companies and research institutes, amongst other approaches.