Bringing entrepreneurial skills to migrants

On 1 September 2016, the European Commission is launching a call for proposals.

Recent images from the Mediterranean and the EU's south-eastern borders have made some people forget the contribution migration has made to Europe's culture over the centuries. New arrivals bring hope and ambition as well as youth and energy. With the right response, the EU can harness that contribution to make Europe a better place for all of us.

The purpose of the call, ‘Entrepreneurial capacity building for young migrants’ (225-G-GRO-PPA-16-9233), is to support the creation, the improvement and the wider distribution of support schemes for entrepreneurs born in non-EU countries. It aims to identify potential migrant entrepreneurs and to raise awareness about entrepreneurship in their communities. This action will focus on:

• Training courses (e.g. on entrepreneurship, business planning, legal aspects of setting up a company and hiring employees, etc.).
• Mentoring schemes for migrant entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs.

The call for proposals is part of the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan of the European Commission. The action plan aims at easing the creation of new businesses and to create a much more supportive environment for existing entrepreneurs to thrive and grow. Entrepreneurship is a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation: it creates new companies and jobs, opens up new markets, and nurtures new skills and capabilities.

The European Commission aims to support an environment attractive to all forms of entrepreneurship, where also business support services reach all potential entrepreneurs, including those from more vulnerable groups, with the aim to make the EU in its entirety stronger and more cohesive.

Within the EU, migrants represent an important pool of potential entrepreneurs, but can face, as other more vulnerable groups, specific legal, cultural and linguistic obstacles. These issues need to be addressed in full to give support equitable to that received by all other entrepreneurial groups.

Following the February 2016 European conference on migrant entrepreneurship, an Evaluation and Analysis of Good Practices in Promoting and Supporting Migrant Entrepreneurship was undertaken. Its results are presented in a Guidebook which offers practical advice, 22 examples of good practice and a self-assessment tool to be used by service providers to improve their actions targeting migrant entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. Guidebook and Benchmarking tool

All of these activities will now culminate in the call for proposals ‘Entrepreneurial capacity building for young entrepreneurs’.

For more information: 

• Call for proposals 'Entrepreneurial capacity building for young migrants' .
• DG GROW's migrant entrepreneurs page.