The difficulties and the challenges which have arisen after the economic crisis in Europe motivated the leaders of the countries to develop and implement the strategy for stimulation of the economic and social development of the European Union. These plans and strategies were written in the strategy Europe 2020.

Main goals of Europe 2020

The program Europe 2020 sets three main factors of the economy stabilization and leverage. They are:

1. Smart growth. It implies the development of the economy based on knowledge and innovations.
2. Sustainable growth. It means the creation of the economy based on the smart usage of the resources and ecology, as well as the existence of the healthy competition.
3. Universal growth. This target will be reached by the leverage of the level of employment of the citizens and social and territorial equality.

As the result, the European Union sets the following targets:

• 75% of the inhabitants who are 20 – 64 years old have to be employed.
• 3% of the GDP of the EU have to be invested into the research and innovations.
• To achieve the targets on the energy policy and climate changes policy, including the decrease of the pollution by 30%.
• The share of students who have quit school should not be greater than 10%. Minimum 40% of the young people have to have a higher education.
• The decrease of the number of people who can turn out to be below the poverty line.

Impact on SMEs

The European Union aims to create the Innovation Union in order to improve and conditions and possibilities of the financing of the research and innovations. It is important to implement all the innovations into the production of new goods in order to leverage their competitiveness. The SMEs can use this initiative to their advantage. It will help to increase their efficiency and the quality of their products. Some of the innovations even help to save the costs and replace human labor by the robots or other machines.

Modern SMEs can focus on the alternative ways of education and help to make the knowledge more accessible for the wider scope of people. Online education, various seminars, workshops, lectures, etc. are in demand nowadays and they help to leverage the professional skills and exchange the experience with the peers.

Small and medium enterprises make their important contribution into the development of the economy of the European Union, help to better implement the strategy Europe 2020 and help to solve various problems of civil society.