Europe's future attractiveness
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Upgrading Europe’s entrepreneurial appeal Andrea Vogel, Leader EMEIA Strategic Growth Markets, Ernst & Young Flying around the Middle East, Africa and Russia today, you can feel the buzz in the air. Some countries in southern Africa are growing faster than China. When you are there, you can feel there is something going on around entrepreneurship. They are where China was 20 years ago. The infrastructure is not right yet, but private equity is entering the continent, finding opportunities.
I really think we need to organize venture capital networks and overhaul the way we work in Europe. In the Middle East, the majority of the population is under 35 years old. They need to create tens of millions of jobs. The state companies and family businesses cannot create them: they have to come through entrepreneurship. And in Russia, this is the first generation
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that has become entrepreneurial. In Europe too, growth will have to come through entrepreneurship. But it is clear that we need unified steps to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship, and remove barriers. In Africa, European innovation is being used to leapfrog the high cost of providing services in the way we Europeans traditionally do. In Nigeria you can walk into a tent and open a bank account accessed via your mobile phone. eHealth is growing rapidly in Africa. They lack our governmental health systems, but if you are diabetic, you can use a mobile phone App to measure whether you need to take insulin. Much of the population is concentrated in 8–10 large cities. Distribution is not such a problem as we imagine. You can reach these people. There is a lot of talent and innovation in Europe, but we don’t do very well at moving innovation out of universities
Ernst & Young's 2012 European attractiveness survey Growth, actually
and turning it into products. In Greece, it takes six months to start a company. To be competitive, we have to do some leapfrogging ourselves. The EU can play a lead role in removing barriers and promoting schemes that work. If you want to stimulate enterprise and innovation you have to make both easier and more profitable. Since France began offering tax credits to venture capitalists three years ago, there has been a huge increase in early-stage investment there, helping innovation. That policy is a good model. I really think we need to organize venture capital networks and overhaul the way we work in Europe. Some countries have rigid rules on working hours, but the new generation doesn’t want to work nine to five. European markets need to operate more efficiently. The world around us is changing fast; but too often, when you get off a plane in Europe, you find that nothing has changed.