Cities offer not only the business opportunities, but the combination of services, support and infrastructure entrepreneurs and small businesses need to thrive. City governments develop policies and programmes tailored to the specific needs of local entrepreneurs and small businesses.

With the right support, we believe that entrepreneurs and SMEs will play a significant role in achieving the Europe 2020 goals of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Some 99% of European businesses are SMEs, and 90% of those employ fewer than ten people. Two out of every three private sector jobs in Europe are provided by SMEs.

Previous recessions have shown that new growth and jobs often come from smaller businesses. Supporting entrepreneurship is therefore crucial to improve Europe’s employment rates..

Entrepreneurship also fosters social and economic cohesion - especially in cities where development is lagging behind - by stimulating economic activity and job creation and helping integrate the unemployed or other disadvantaged groups into work.

The needs of small businesses and entrepreneurs vary widely, as do the environments in which they operate.

The European Small Business Act calls for policies relating to SMEs ‘to fully recognise this diversity and fully respect the principle of subsidiarity’. Cities are therefore ideally-placed to identify the most appropriate strategies and create favourable environments for entrepreneurs and small business to flourish. They do so by facilitating networking opportunities, managing business incubators and developing synergies between companies and research institutes, amongst other approaches.

Our working group on entrepreneurship focuses on finding ways to improve city services to entrepreneurs and small businesses. It is a platform for cities to share expertise and experience and the group closely follows European initiatives aimed at fostering entrepreneurship, and provides input to ensure that they are closely aligned with cities’ needs.

In October 2012, we published 'Helping cities foster entrepreneurship', our response to the European Commission consultation on its future Entrepreneurship 2020 action plan.