New online portal to help young entrepreneurs start and grow their own business

A new online portal to help young entrepreneurs start and grow their own business was launched on 17 November by the Employers' Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), in which GRTU's Director General is member representing employers.

The website is a joint initiative of the EESC and the European Commission. It addresses policy failings in the promotion of entrepreneurship, especially among young people and women. The Global Entrepreneur Envoy online portal "Entrepreneur Envoy" will offer tools to foster culture change and promote entrepreneur-friendly policies. The launch took place on 17 November 2011 during the third edition of the "Young European Entrepreneurs' Seminar", hosted by the president of the Employers' Group of the EESC, Henri Malosse. The event featured contributions from 52 active young entrepreneurs from 18 European countries.

Mr Malosse said: "We want to develop a new vision of the entrepreneurial spirit, allowing Europeans to create wealth and build on a European identity. I truly believe in the power of water droplets accumulating to achieve great things. We can achieve anything if we pool our modest means."

The participants' recommendations the following priorities:

 A European Statute for SMEs (the Statute for a European private company), an EESC initiative

 A unified Europe with a real European government

 Facilitating vocational exchange for young people, in addition to school and university exchange schemes

 A European network of business incubators

 European financing facilities for new initiatives, especially microcredit

 Holding a "Young entrepreneurs' day" to celebrate success

For more information, please contact Milen Minchev by sending an email to:

The Employers' Group is one of the three groups of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), a consultative body of the European Union. The EESC enables representatives of business organisations, trade unions, professional associations and civic groups to contribute to the framing of EU policies and decisions."