Policymakers

Startup Europe Nations Council of Policymakers @ Startup Europe Summit 2016

 

On the 9th of June, Startup Europe brought together policymakers from across Europe to share their work, their achievements and the lessons learned during Startup Europe Summit 2016. A summary of the main highlights:

• Portugal presented its renewed efforts for startup support through Startup Portugal and the Portuguese Startup Manifesto (with support of Commissioner Moedas)

 

• Austria elaborated on its investment fund strategy (currently developing an international European venture fund) and long-term economic strategy based on startups and networking across Europe and beyond. Supported by Secretary of State Harald Mahrer and with the help of Austrian Startups

 

• Poland highlighted the importance of developing good conditions for startups in urban centres (as Warsaw) by listening and providing to the needs of the community (as Startup Poland), complementing private initiative, not competing.

• Estonia, recognising the value of Skype’s founders reinvesting in their country, develops startup supportive policy by encouraging high level political dialogue between startups and government. Recent work has been aimed at solving the existing lack of talent, easing the capital market, developing simple e-government and e-residency solutions, handling geoblocking, among other topics.

 

• Belgium, through the support of Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Digital Agenda & Startups.be, has made impressive progress in policy work supporting workshop: tax incentives for startup hiring and investment, public procurement initiatives such as “buy from startups”, framework for sharing economy workers, among other advances.

 

• Startup Europe also announced the following opportunities for Member States:
  • Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley – http://sec2sv.com/
  • Startup Europe Map – www.startupeuropemap.eu/map/

 

• The major lesson learned is that there are great things happening in Europe that should be shared further. For increasing the dialogue a Slack group was established, join here: https://goo.gl/4cCk5Q Startup Europe wants to help policymakers working on themes related to startups (e.g.: Digital Single Market) and promote what works. Reach out to Startup Europe so we can make your achievements more visible and push towards a more startup-friendly Europe!

 

Contact details:

Matevz Gantar: [email protected]