Armenia is joining COSME, the EU programme supporting the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises

Today Elżbieta Bieńkowska, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, and Karen Chshmaritian, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia, signed the agreement on Armenia's participation in the COSME programme as of January 2016.

Armenia is the second Eastern partner country to join COSME and its participation is a sign of continued efforts to deepen economic cooperation between Armenia and the European Union.

Armenia has already been participating in the Enterprise Europe Network, a key component of COSME, since its inception. The Enterprise Europe Network helps SMEs to develop and facilitate their internationalisation, provides them with access to the EU market and to innovative technology.

COSME will support projects on a wide range of topics that include clustering, women entrepreneurship, reducing the administrative burden for companies, and intellectual property rights protection for companies operating in non-EU countries.

COSME is the EU programme aimed at strengthening the competitiveness and sustainability of SMEs running from 2014 to 2020 with a budget of €2.3bn. 

Armenia is the seventh country outside the EU to join and contribute to the Programme, after Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Turkey, Albania and Serbia.

Participation in the programme complements Armenia's implementation of the recently published SBA (Small Business Act for Europe) Assessment for Eastern partner countries.