COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE ENTREPRENEURIAL INITIATIVES: EXAMPLES OF START-UP INCENTIVES AND PROGRAMMES IN ROMANIA AND OTHER EU COUNTRIES

Purpose: Entrepreneurship is essential for economic growth. Every country should promote and encourage start-up businesses - mostly in fast-growing, innovative, high-tech and high added value industries. Approach: The paper refers to the EU framework (regulations, recommendations, types of assistance, programmes, grants) related to the entrepreneurship and small business support. Examples of such EU programmes, including Romania, are presented: access to finance, business counseling, tax incentives as well as other types of assistance in starting-up a business. The control methods, results and success factors are analyzed. Results & Conclusions: The paper emphasizes the main lessons learnt from ended and ongoing start-up programmes, key success factors, measurement and monitoring, best practices.