The message of the Cyprus EU Presidency is a better Europe and a Europe of growth, the benefits of which will be distributed, first and foremost, among its citizens, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis told the Informal Competitiveness Council here today.

In order to achieve this goal, he continued, Europe must have supportive measures and policies for businesses, in the direction of ingenuity and encouragement of innovation, creation of new business models and new jobs and increase in productivity.

That means measures and policies directed at supporting the real economy, in a way that Europe maintains its economic leadership, he added.

The Minister said that growth means, inter alia, promoting policies that foster entrepreneurship, particularly small and medium businesses.

According to the Minister, the discussion at the Informal Competitiveness Council will focus on four pillars: entrepreneurship in education, women’s entrepreneurship, innovation and giving a second chance to honest businessmen who went bankrupt.  

He noted that promoting entrepreneurship in education is part of the implementation of Europe 2020 Strategy and that integration of entrepreneurship in teaching is imperative.

In relation to women’s entrepreneurship, Sylikiotis pointed out that “we must examine ways to promote their involvement in business employment, through financial support of business initiatives and ways to network more effectively”.

Pointing out that innovation completely intertwines with entrepreneurship, Sylikiotis noted that policies to promote innovation must be based on introducing innovation at work and designing new products and services, engaging businesses in clusters, stimulating demand through innovative products and services, creating new business models, promoting social innovation and development of funding tools.

The Minister said they will also raise issues such as enabling honest businessmen who went bankrupt to set up their business anew, in addition to discussing paying off creditors, decriminalizing non-fraudulent bankruptcy, accelerating bankruptcy procedures and ensuring transparency during auction and bankruptcy through the expansion of new rules.  

The results of Council consultations on the above-mentioned issues, suggested by the Cyprus Presidency, will be used to enrich future consultations to draw conclusions at the Competitiveness Council in December.

Cyprus, which joined the EU in May 2004, assumed the six monthly EU rotating presidency in July this year.