Concrete measures from Bussels to promote entrepreneurship of weaker population brackets and counter social and occupational exclusion. EU Commissioner for regional policies, Danuta Hübner, in the past few days announced a “new initiative aimed at improving access to credit by small enterprises and by those living a social exclusion situation to undertake an independent activity”. The objective is to create favourable conditions for the development of micro-credit (small loans averaging 7,700 up to not more than 25.000 in Europe), helping “those people who for different reasons cannot access loans in the traditional banking system”. This initiative, which has been widely employed in poorer Countries for the past decade, follows the wake of the pilot project funded by the European Social Fund “Local Capital and Social Goals” which -inexplicably – was supported by the Commission only in the years 1999-2001. The Member States, in cooperation with community and regional authorities are now called to adapt “institutional, legal and trade frameworks at national level” for suppliers and recipients. The estimated increase of EU invested capital is believed to exceed 6 billion in only few years.
