After four years of preparat-ory and pilot phases, Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) has become a fixture of the European Union’s effort to support the creation of new businesses. Now on a permanent footing as part of Cosme, the EU’s programme for the competitiveness of enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the mobility scheme is expected to expand considerably between 2014 and 2020.

The scale of this growth depends on the budget, which is still under discussion as part of implementing the budget for 2014-20, agreed in outline in June.

With more than half a nod to the Erasmus scholarships for students to study abroad, the EYE scheme encourages new entrepreneurs, before they set up a business, or within three years of doing so, to spend a period working with a more experienced host entrepreneur in another country. This is intended to improve their chances of starting or developing a successful business, and help them think about new markets and international collaboration. The host, mean

while, is expected to benefit from exposure to fresh ideas or an injection of specialised skills.

Matchmaking

Entrepreneurs who are interested either in travelling, or in playing host, register with the programme and can search a database of participants for possible matches. Local contact points help with matchmaking and subsequent agreements about what each side can expect from the exchange.

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Visits last from one to six months, and can be divided into phases over the space of a year. The EU’s financial contribution covers the new entrepreneur’s travel and subsistence costs while abroad.

In its early phases the challenge was to raise awareness of the scheme, but now that is no longer a problem as 50-60 entrepreneurs are signing up to the scheme every week. “There is more demand than the budget will allow, so the focus at the moment is on trying to make sure that quality exchanges are supported, those that we consider have the most potential and are most relevant in socio-economic terms,” says Ben Butters, the scheme’s senior project manager, who is also EU affairs director at Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Those decisions are usually made by the local contact people. “There are numerous criteria, but ultimately it is a slightly subjective decision, based on the experience of the intermediary organisations about which [new entrepreneurs] they think are the most motivated and have the most potential to start a business and benefit from the process.”

Interest in the scheme has been greatest in southern European countries, both among new entrepreneurs and potential hosts. Its reception in northern Europe has been cooler, which is a problem given the high demand for hosts in the UK and Germany. More than 1,600 exchanges have taken place or are underway, with the greatest interest from the service sector.

The lack of more solid information about what makes a good exchange and the broader impact of the scheme is currently being addressed with a survey of previous participants. The results are expected in the first quarter of 2014. A more extensive assessment of the programme and of potential improvements will then be discussed with the European Commission.

Even before those results are in, Butters thinks there is scope to make the scheme more cost-effective. “We believe that it is money well spent, but also that the unit cost of each exchange could drop significantly if the scale were increased,” he said.

However, if the programme is to realise its potential, such an increase in scale cannot, he said, be half-hearted.

“The budget needs to be increased quite a lot, otherwise it’s never going to reach the critical mass, the visibility and the general awareness levels that it will need to become sustainable over a number of years in the same way as the original Erasmus programme.”

Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.