To close the innovation gap with its foreign competitors, the European Union has decided to place start-ups at the heart of its economic strategy. Guided by the quest for competitiveness and the development and maintenance of innovation champions on its territory, the European Strategy for Start-ups and Scale-ups was unveiled by the European Commission on Wednesday May 28, 2025.
While the proposed measures echo the current needs of start-ups, the strategy fails to give social and ecological innovation their rightful place in the race for global competitiveness.
Given the exile of many European start-ups from the continent, the strategy aims to create the right conditions for start-ups to scale up and develop scale-ups, to encourage them not to relocate outside the EU.
It is designed to meet five needs:
1) Introduce innovation-friendly regulations;
2) Promote better financing ;
3) Support market adoption and expansion;
4) Attract and retain the best talent ;
5) Facilitate access to infrastructure, networks and services.
Motivations behind the proposed measures include the desire to harmonize the European single market, the redirection of funding towards innovative companies, and a targeted simplification of the regulatory framework. Key measures include
Impact France welcomes a strategy dedicated to start-ups and their scaling-up, which is essential to the emergence of innovation champions on our continent.
With the exception of a measure proposing the revision of the Social Economy Action Plan (2021) in 2026, the strategy overlooks social and ecological innovation, which are essential levers of competitiveness in tomorrow's world.
Impact France thus remains fully committed to working with public decision-makers to promote greater recognition of social and ecological innovation, and to enable impact entrepreneurs to benefit from the same conditions as their tech counterparts.