UEAPME, the European craft and SME employers’ organisation, is pleased to announce the creation this week of the first European association exclusively focused on representing the interests of the SME community in the ICT sector.

The Pan European ICT & eBusiness Network for SMEs (PIN-SME) aims at bringing ICT SMEs on the business and political scene, where so far large companies have dominated. Its founding members are national sectoral SME federations and ICT clusters from 8 EU countries, representing more than 50.000 enterprises employing around 200.000 people across Europe. PIN-SME will focus on policy issues such as software patents, ICT standardisation, e-invoicing, e-health and e-skills. It will also work to increase the attractiveness of the ICT profession in Europe. Small businesses in the ICT sector lack qualified personnel, therefore it is crucial to increase ICT-related training opportunities and foster professionals’ mobility. Moreover, PIN-SME will become a platform for its members to exchange best practices and develp networking business solutions.

The statutes of PIN-SME were signed in Brussels on 3 December in the presence of Mr Müller, NORMAPME’s Director Loucas Gourtsoyannis, Ms Françoise Le Bail, SME Envoy and Deputy Director General of the EC’s DG Enterprise, Mr Paul Rübig MEP and Dr Jorgo Chatzimarkakis MEP. The PIN-SME General Assembly meeting on the same day appointed Mr Johann Steszgal from the Austrian ICT organisation UBIT and NORMAPME’s Sebastiano Toffaletti respectively as PIN-SME President and Secretary General.