YEPP’s leadership met today with the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker to present their European plan for startups and discuss common actions that would lead to a startup-friendly European Union. This comes as a follow-up to the YEPP Athens Council on 6th December 2014, an event that brought together 120 young leaders from 40 European countries.
Thirty-two proposals were presented today, a product of consultations between the young politicians of Youth EPP and representatives of the startup community around Europe. Among them were new programs of direct funding and loans for startups from the European Investment Bank, deregulation of crowdfunding, the incentivisation of angel investment, the creation of a pan-European legal entity specifically for startups, the introduction of the “European Startup Capital”, reducing taxation and simplifying tax systems and the creation of an EU Startup Visa.
YEPP president Konstantinos Kyranakis mentioned “True to our commitment for pushing our proposals in national and European frameworks, we start today from the top of the European Commission and continue with European and national politicians and institutions, in order to bring change for the hardworking, risk taking young people, Europe’s startup heroes.
YEPP’s leadership and the President of the EC agreed to work together on the proposals and push them in the European Parliament and National Governments. The two sides also agreed to work together on promoting the ‘Juncker Investment Plan’ that will be presented in all Member States by Jyrki Katainen. YEPP representatives stressed the need to highlight as much as possible the benefits for the EU citizens and the growth opportunities that would be created.
