Helping the small to stand tall

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the European economy. There are 23 million of them in the Union, representing 99% of all EU companies and employing some 75 million people. These statistics underpin the increasing focus at the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry on the needs of SMEs and underline the importance of creating a healthy working environment for such businesses if the Union is to rise to its number one challenge of stimulating economic growth and creating new jobs. There is already a well-established philosophy and an extensive range of measures to support SMEs, but the Commission is now fine-tuning these to ensure an even closer fit with the reshaped Lisbon economic reform agenda.