Teach children entrepreneurship, roll out a pan-European Startup Visa and make it easier for high-growth companies to go public – those are just three recommendations from a 22-point plan that a group of leading European tech entrepreneurs have put forward to the European Commission in a manifesto published today. Now they’re looking for you, the startup community, to support it.
The Startup Europe Leaders Club is an independent group of entrepreneurs assembled by Vice-President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes to act as a steering group of sorts for policies relating to entrepreneurship and the Internet economy.
As we reported at the time of its launch, the Club is made up of Spotify’s Daniel Ek, Rovio’s Kaj Hed, TCIO’s Joanna Shields, Seedcamp’s Reshma Sohoni, Tuenti’s Zaryn Dentzel, Atomico’s Niklas Zennström, Hackfwd’s Lars Hinrichs and The Next Web’s co-founder, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.
The 22 recommendations are divided into seven themes: Education & Skills; Access to Talent; Access to Capital; Data Policy, Protection & Privacy, and Thought Leadership. The Leaders Club worked with the Founders Forum in London to formulate the plan.
Many of the recommendations are things we’ve heard called for many times before – indeed, some of them have already been done at an EU level. However, the plan is that based on public support for the manifesto, a “robust and actionable” document will be created ahead of a series of meetings in Brussels in October that will set policy priorities for EU bodies such as the European Council with the aim of influencing policy further.
Take a look at the manifesto. If you agree with the recommendations, you can add your support on its website.
Image credit: ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images
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