COHESION POLICY SUPPORT FOR ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are the cornerstone of the EU economy, but they face difficulties in accessing financing for their activities, especially investments. The European Commission strives to improve the competitiveness of the European Union and its regions. Therefore it is pursuing cohesion policy, which is now the EU's primary investment policy. Enterprise support has always been among aims of financing by the Structural Funds, but in the period of 2014-2020 it has been highlighted under a separate thematic objective “Enhancing the competitiveness of SME” with the largest funding of all themes. Business support is also included in other thematic regional policy objectives. The purpose of this article is to analyse the financing of business activities, especially for SMEs, within the framework of the EU cohesion policy. After analysing the EU documents and statistics, it can be argued that the opportunities for business support, especially for SMEs, are large and, in effective use, contributes to the mobilization of additional national public and private resources. Therefore this type of enterprises support should contribute to improving the competitiveness European enterprises as well as of the whole European Union and its regions.