Enterprise Policy is covered by Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement and falls under Subcommittee IV.

The main priority of the Working Group for Enterprise Policy is the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP). CIP is a brand new EU programme that targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and helps them to innovate. It aims to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, environmental technologies, entrepreneurship and a better use of information and communication technology (ICT). CIP has integrated a large number of earlier EU programmes into three sub-programmes: the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (EIP) focusing on SMEs, the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) to support the adoption of ICTs in businesses, administrations and public sector services, and the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme (IEE).

The Working Group on Enterprise Policy followed the development of SOLVIT, an online problem-solving network through which the authorities work together to solve problems caused by the misapplication of Internal Market law by public authorities without legal proceedings.

The Working Group also monitors the EU Better Regulation strategy, the development of the Your Europe portal, the EU Innovation Agenda and the development of the Internal Market Information (IMI) system, which will provide Member State administrations with a multilingual, open and flexible database tool to support the mutual assistance and information exchange required to implement Internal Market legislation efficiently.

See also:

DG Enterprise and Industry

The Competitiveness and Innovation Programme