The new European Commission and the next term of the European Parliament will start. The work of the coming 5 years will be decisive if Europe can maintain or even increase its level of welfare and its political and social stability.

At political and social level, Europe is confronted with:

• BREXIT;
• Trade conflicts with large trading partners like United States and China;
• Pressure from people and scientist to tackle climate change;
• Challenge to integrate a huge number of refugees and migrants into the labour market;
• Growing regional disparities, devasted areas, large metropoles;
• Increases of populistic and nationalistic movements.

Europe’s economic recovery is fading out:

• Public and private investments are still bellow pre-crisis levels;
• The sustainability of public finance has not been re-established for all Member States;
• The banking sector is partially vulnerable and the Banking Union not yet completed;
• The Capital Market Union made very limited progress and Europe’s businesses have still difficulties to finance growth, innovation and investments;
• Even if unemployment has been reduced significantly, there is still an unacceptable level on youth unemployment and at the same time more and more companies are confronted with skill shortage;

Furthermore, there are additional challenge for the 24 Million Crafts and SMEs in Europe, which has to be tackled to make Europe stronger as a whole:

• Entrepreneurs and small business owner have too often the impression that politicians and society at large do nor respect and recognize their contribution to Europe’s economy and society.
• Regulations and programmes are not adapted to their reality and specific needs of Crafts and SMEs.
• Both result in unnecessary administrative burdens, too high compliance costs and bureaucratic barriers for doing business.
• SMEs are confronted with unfair business practices in relation to platforms and large multinationals, but also as regards their relations to consumers and employees.
• Furthermore, SMEs see unlevel playing fields as regards market access to internal and international markets as well as tax regimes in Europe.
• Many Crafts and SMEs struggle to catch-up with technological developments, especially related to digitalisation and the greening of the economy.
• SMEs have more difficulties than large companies to find the needed qualifications at the labour market and to access external finance.

Furthermore, digitalisation and technological changes are listed as the biggest challenges to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.