Category: What’s Up Europe?
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“For Europe to recover, SMEs need to recover.” – The European Commission announces SME Relief Package
The SMEs of Europe have been facing difficult times in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertainty, restrictions forced many businesses to temporarily close down, while other sectors were affected by supply-chain shortages. After the brief recovery period that followed the pandemic, the world economy and SMEs are now facing new challenges: inflation, skyrocketing energy…
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The Contribution of Ethnic Minority Firms to Innovation, Growth and Trade: An interview with Monder Ram
Professor Monder Ram is the Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME). He is a leading authority on small business and ethnic minority entrepreneurship research and has published widely on the subject, and has extensive experience of working in and acting as a consultant to small and ethnic minority businesses. Together…
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Women and their mobile use: understanding the mobile gender gap in 2020
“In 2020, connectivity is more important than ever. Internet access is a gateway to critical information, services and opportunities available to many people for the first time. Growth in internet access has been remarkable in low- and middle-income countries, where 2.9 billion people now access the internet on their mobile phones”, as set forth in…
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COVID19 and its effects on mobility of migrants
Among the many changes the global pandemic COVID-19 has brought to the world, an important change is that hundreds of millions of people across the globe have encountered serious restrictions on their mobility. Although, associating mobility with the threat has adverse consequences in the long run. Such severe constraints on mobility negatively impact the situation…
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Young Entrepreneurs from the South, raise up! An interview with Amel Saidane
Amel Saidane is an entrepreneur, ecosystem builder and digital transformation expert. She is president of Tunisian Startups and the co-founder of BetaCube a venture builder in Fintech. She is an innovation and digital transformation activist acting for instance as a board member for the Digital Center of Excellence of the United Nations Economic Commission for…
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Our interview with H.E. Ms. Gaitri Ambassador of India to the Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU on India-EU economic, political and cultural relations
In October 2017, the 14th India-EU Summit was unable to set in motion the stalled negotiations for concluding the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA), or Broad Based Trade and Investment agreement (BTIA). According to you, what are the main obstacles to the conclusion of an agreement? Trade has been an integral part of the EU…
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Our interview with MEP and Friends of New Europeans member Wim Van de Camp: His valuable insight on EU trade and entrepreneurship policies
As a substitute member of the INTA Committee, what would it be in your opinion the main challenge in EU Trade Policy in 2018? European trade is facing two big challenges in my opinion. We face an unpredictable US administration and a complex relation with China. I think that particularly Chinese investments in Europe are going to…
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Commissioner Oettinger’s insight on the EU long-term budget after 2020: Swift and comprehensive agreement essential
In the run-up of the upcoming proposal for the future Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) beyond 2020, Commissioner Oettinger in charge of the Budget and Human Resources shared with us his insight on the matter: “In less than two months (2 May) we will propose the long-term EU Budget financial perspectives beyond2020, post Brexit. What seems to be…
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4th European Migration Forum: Towards a more inclusive labour market for migrants: Seizing the potential by addressing the challenges
The 4th European Migration Forum – the dialogue platform on migration, asylum and migrant integration – took place on 6 March and was organized around the theme “Towards a more inclusive labour market for migrants: Seizing the potential by addressing the challenges”. The EMF is a platform for dialogue between civil society and the European…
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All Together to celebrate the International Women’s Day: Our interview with Commissioner Thyssen on the situation of women in politics and in the labour market
Since 1991, you have worked in the European institutions – for 22 years as a member of the European Parliament and since 2014 as the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility. How would you say the situation of women in politics at EU level has evolved since you started? Much has…