Making SMEs and start-ups a driver of growth and job creation requires a number of policies to improve the performance of SMEs, whose labour productivity in the manufacturing sector has fallen to less than a third of that in large companies. The large-scale support for SMEs should shift from...

Innovation in the European Union remains weak according to a number of key "input" indicators, especially R&D investment by the business sector, and there are relatively few signs of progress. From a firm-level perspective, Europe's innovation gap relative to the US results from an inappropriate...