Since March 2008, the European Commission has been organizing a series of events with the aim of offering small and medium enterprises sollutions to tackle the crisis and showing entrepreneurs where they can seek advice and benefit from a wide range of easily accessible business support services. The last of these events will take place in February in The Hague (Netherlands).

EU Finance Day for SMEs is a series of events in the Member States that the European Commission is organising to inform about the EU financial instruments for SMEs together with the national financial intermediaries that implement these instruments locally. The aim is to raise awareness about different sources of finance and provide a forum for sharing good practices in helping innovative SMEs get easier access to finance.

During their start-up phase, SMEs often face a number of problems directly linked to the lack of resources: lack of human resources, lack of experience, lack of expertise in certain fields, lack of contacts, and of course, lack of financial capacity. Business defaults can have many causes but there is a societal interest in reducing hindrances for start-ups and small enterprises with growth potential. One of the most important issues is to improve the access to suitable finance.

The Commission has developed a number of actions aimed at addressing these problems, and more details can be found on European Portal for SMEs (available in all EU languages).

Helping SMEs to develop their innovative potential and raise awareness about Commission policies and programmes is the aim of the Enterprise Europe Network. This new European Commission initiative offers entrepreneurs an opportunity to seek advice and benefit from a wide range of easily accessible business support services.

Several events have already been held in different cities of Europe, such as Helsinki, Sofía, Prague, Dublin, Budapest, Vienna, Oslo, Warsaw, Paris, Brussels or Madrid. The last event of the year took place in Lisbon in December. Now, The Hague, in Netherlands, is the city that will host the last meeting of this series. 

The different activities will take place in Crowne Plaza Hotel (Den Haag-Promenade Van Stolkweg 1) on Febrauary 18. Experts from European Commission, European Investment Fund, IAPMEI or Enterprise Europe Network will explain entrepreneurs their possibilities in the current European Union.