Commissioner Antonio Tajani announced a series of new initiatives and planned actions to improve access of SMEs to finance, to boost entrepreneurship and to go international. These actions comprise a guide providing information to improve SMEs access to funding, an European wide training campaign for the Enterprise Europe Network to help SMEs get access to finance, and the launching of a call for proposals to select new IPR Helpdesks in the ASEAN and MERCOSUR countries to help European SMEs to expand their activities to these regions.

The European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani announced a series of new initiatives and planned actions to improve access of SMEs to finance, to boost entrepreneurship and to go international on the occasion of the fourth meeting of the European SME envoys held in Malta. According to Mr Tajani, entrepreneurial potential in Europe is not fully exploited. He also added that "if we want to stimulate growth in Europe, it is from our SMEs that we must start".

Among the measures launched by the Commission, the European Commission just published a call for proposals for the provision of ASEAN and MERCOSUR IPR SME Helpdesks. They will offer a series of free services to SMES in their home countries, in their target countries and online: EU SMEs will receive confidential advice, materials for legal background support and expert training. Also as new measure, it has been launched by the Commission a European wide training campaign for the Enterprise Europe Network to help SMEs get access to finance. SMEs can contact one of 600 Enterprise Europe Network partners, who will be able to provide information on EU and national sources of finance.

In addition, Mr Tajani presented a practical guide for SMEs to help access over €50 billion of finance. The guide provides information on how to access over €50 billion of public finance in the 27 Member States. It presents over 120 national or regional financing programmes and provides key information helping SMEs to apply for the different programmes in terms of characteristics, terms, conditions and contact information.