Small and Medium Enterprise

Do you want to improve your business? Do you have ideas but need more funding? If you have a small or medium-sized enterprise, the European Union has several ways to help make your dreams come true. You can secure funding by applying for a grant, a business or another specific type of loan via various programmes intended for startups, entrepreneurs, micro companies, and others.

EU PRO Plus is among the most well-known programmes in our country aimed at lending support to small and medium enterprises. The programme has run for several years under similar names, helping numerous companies in various regions of Serbia to fund their projects. Over the years, the programme has created a kind of upstream reciprocity: a carpenter from Western Serbia would receive a grant for equipment and commit to extending help to someone else, like crafting furniture for a local kindergarten.

For example, a family bakery from Novi Pazar received a grant of 20,000 euros to purchase new equipment to increase production. Once the production increased, the bakery hired new workers to keep up with the increased volume of work, resulting in a win-win for everyone! Read more about the programme here.

Another funding instrument for small and medium enterprises is available through the Development Agency of Serbia, which distributes the funding from European Union grants to end users via selected banks. You can find out more about their offers here.

Many entrepreneurs in Serbia have had the opportunity to improve their businesses through the now-defunct COSME programme, which has recently received a "successor" in the InvestEU, a soon-to-be-approved programme scheduled to run until 2027.

Finally, the long-standing, EU-funded Western Balkans Enterprise Development and Innovation Facility (WB EDIF) aims to create a more favourable environment for SME financing and a long-term sustainable capital market.