Skip to main content
Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
News blog30 November 2022Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

SME Assembly 2022 – Day 3

The third and final day of the SME Assembly 2022 had a full morning of sessions, panel discussions and the awaited Youth Essay competition, which 20-year old Hulgarian Viktória Vass won!

SME Assembly 2022 – Day 3

The morning panel “New Ways of Working” explored the best practices that SMEs can adopt to upskill their workforce and equip. One of the 33 under 33 Stories of Success Kosima Kovar said: “If we want our future to be a masterpiece, we need to give our artists more colors to paint with than just what it takes to create blue suits and brown shoes.”

In the policy workshop “Green Investment”, the investing in green and renewable energies was discussed and how it has never been more critical.

The session “Rise of the Creative Class” heard from Alessandro Rancatci, former Senior Policy Designer, who discussed the challenges around sustainable transition for SMEs.

Youth Essay Competition 2022 ceremony

A highlight of the final day of this year’s SME Assembly was the presentation of the top three essays by the finalists in this year’s Youth Essay Competition, with feedback from the Chair of the Youth Essay Jury and Kristina Dimova, 2021 Youth Essay Competition winner.

After the presentations, the audience voted on the winning essay, with the prize going to Viktoria Vass. Congratulations to Viktoria for her exceptional essay!

You can find out more about her essay and the other two YEC 2022 finalists here.

The final discussion on Day 3 of the SME Assembly focused on SME Economic Performance. Speakers shared and explored recently published data on the performance of SMEs in 2022 with a view to discussing how which priority policy measures need to be better implemented or designed to help SMEs meet the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions.

SME week 2022 idea board

“SME Definition in Practice” workshop aimed to discuss the implementation of the existing SME Definition, its usefulness and applicability in the current situation. Policy makers focused on problematic areas that Member States face when implementing the SME definition. The main two topics were relations through natural persons and practical impacts and experience with judgement T745/17 Kerkosand.

Andre-closing-Day-3

 

Policy Conclusions of SME Assembly 2022 took over in Hall C of O2 Universum with most of the participants to finalise the successful event with the debate and exchanges of this year’s Assembly. Speakers and attendees shared concrete ideas that have been put forward for the SME Relief Package; as well as their prescriptions for the longer-term transition to a digital and net zero future.

SME Assembly 2022 is over, but learned so much for the future of SMEs and cannot wait to see the next actions will be.

Meanwhile the torch has been handed over to Spain! We are looking forward to seeing you all again next year in Spain.

Spain-SME-Assembly-2023

 

You van have an overview of the session on Day 1 and Day 2, and also catch some of the highlights on Twitter via @EEPA_EU.

Promoting Enterprise - categories
EU SME WeekEU SME Assembly
Promoting Enterprise - tags
SME Assembly