Toespraak eurocommissaris over het stimuleren van jonge ondernemers (en)

Ladies and gentlemen,

Choosing to be an entrepreneur is often a brave decision - and not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. But I want to thank you for having the spirit and determination to choose this path in life.

Of course not everyone should be an entrepreneur - that would create too much competition! But I think I can say - just between you and me - that Europe needs more people with the same confidence and sense of adventure as all of you.

By being here to share and learn, you are great role models. You are proving that entrepreneurs care about more than themselves. People of my age and politicians in general can learn a great deal from your openness and willingness to work across boundaries and borders.

And, by the way, I see examples of this everywhere I go. Whether it’s the guys who run Facebook and Twitter, or the 800 people I met at the Campus Party event in Madrid in April. Each of them sends a very clear message: your generation really understands how we can improve society through innovation.

This is why you are exactly the sort of girls and guys that I want as partners in the movement for digital action. I am looking for committed, open and business-minded people. People who will help take Europe fully into the digital era from the bottom up!

Only with a real movement of support will we implement the full vision of the Digital Agenda for Europe. Would you be willing to be part of that movement?

I will not ask you again what barriers you are facing. By now we have a pretty good idea of the structural problems in Europe.

To name but a few:

A…. Cultural ones - where risk and failure are frowned upon. This is the biggest barrier. Did you know that twice as many Europeans as Americans and Chinese are afraid of failure in business1? Isn’t that just incredible? We need to be less risk-averse and think big. ICT is a global business and its global success that should be our scope.

B… Financial ones - Facing a fragmented venture capital market and risk-averse public procurement policies means that finance is often 'missing in action' when you need it C…Competitive ones - 'why stay here?' many innovators ask, when there are alternatives like Silicon Valley or Asia, with abundant capital and huge consumer markets.

And

D… Bureaucratic ones - red tape is not part of the recipe for your future success. Getting involved in government funding has to be worth the effort.

My bottom line is this: we have to create a situation where "entrepreneur" is not a word from another planet. Where kids actually aspire to become an entrepreneur.

So Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn and I have set the objective of removing these barriers. We want to build up the environment for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Please guide us in this work; and let's make this about doing rather than talking and talking amongst ourselves.

We need to take our passions to the rest of the world so that people in the supermarket and the street really understand what you and I mean when we talk about the importance of innovation.

It will take thousands of people like each of you to bring about this new culture. So I am counting on you to talk to friends and bureaucrats you deal with.

What is the EU i doing already to change the culture?

Quite a lot - so don't be turned off the idea of getting formally involved in an EU innovation project. We already invest about €10 billion a year in R&D&I, with about €2 billion going to ICT-related work.

But I want us to really look at the whole innovation chain. So we don't just do great research, but so we get it to market quickly, and put Europe into the digital driver's seat.

You are the ones who can put us in the driver's seat.

What else will the EU do to help in the future?

Firstly you know that Europe has to find extra ways to exploit its young entrepreneurial talent.

Specifically that means we need to make it easier to operate across the Single Market; reducing its fragmentation. First in copyright and cross-border licensing, and more generally across telecoms and all online commerce.

We are also working on making it easier for people like you to recruit the talent you need and to make it easier and quicker to access funding and identify partnerships by making our public-private partnerships more accessible with 'lighter and faster' funding access.

We also want to ensure the public sector organisations of Member States perform a first-buyer function of innovative products and services. By adding this link of pre-commercial procurement to Europe's innovation chain we think we can build up many new markets.

This of course needs to be supported by fast networks that you trust

There is another thing I want you to take seriously - and that is building up the number of women entrepreneurs. Women start up businesses here at much lower rates than the US. Only 23% of young European women can imagine themselves being self-employed. Continuing that situation is not sustainable. We will have too few productive people and we would miss out on the very valuable contribution of women to our society. So I want all of you to think of what you could do to encourage women to join your ventures, or to support other women around you.

So - enjoy today. I hope the connections you make here last a long time. And you can count on me to support you. I hope I can count on you too!

1 :

Eurobarameter at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_283_en.pdf

“One should not start a business if there is a risk it might fail": 48% of Europeans agree with this statement, vs 26% in US and 23% in China