SET UP AND ENLARGEMENT OF NATIONAL NETWORKS

FOR E-BUSINESS POLICIES

AND INITIATIVES IN BULGARIA AND ROMANIA

A. Objectives

The general objective of eBGRO is to establish sustainable European structures for e-business policies and initiatives, based on the exchange of experience and best practices.eBGRO integrates to the European e-Business Support Network (eBSN) and shall provide a coherent media in support of the interpenetration of national and Pan-European economic processes and the competitiveness of the Bulgarian and Romanian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The integration of national capacities and resources must provide conditions for successful realization of:

• consolidation of the national infrastructures for promotion of eBusiness related activities in Bulgaria and Romania – a network of government agencies, NGOs, universities and e-service providing companies, founded on the principals of PPP.

• Incorporation of Bulgarian and Romanian e-business promoting initiatives to the European e-business support policies;

• Establishment of national teams for partnership and collaboration with EU policy makers, creators and managers of e-business policy initiatives;

• Provision of easy access and transparency in the realization of national and regional e-business support policies and initiatives, tenders and projects implementation;

• Planning, methodological support, control and expertise of business support activities. Provision of evidence for the compatibility, coordination and safety of these activities;

• Support in project co-ordination and project management and raising the methodological capacity of the project teams;

• Motivation for discussions and improvement of legal and regulation initiatives, analysis of legal issues, related to e-business and lobbing for their constructive amendments.

• Stimulation and support of development of hi-tech ICT tools in promotion of business processes. The new structures-alliances will provide control, expertise and adaptation of innovation technologies to the actual business practices.

• Dissemination of e-business support initiatives and stimulation of the e-business opportunities awareness and about the new challenges for SME sector.

The first glance on the existing national laws in the new member states, related to these issues, shows nearly the same level of diversity as in the first 27. But there is a notable lack of information about real practices and the meaning of businesses involvement concerning the actual innovative models and practices for development. The intensive communication between the project partners will support:

• creation of association teams acting as e-business policy makers in Bulgaria and Romania;

• elaboration of effective methods of development of the infrastructure – front and back offices for the realization of e-business policy and initiatives in the two new member countries;

• raising the awareness of the newly established associations about the e-business support policies in EU and the linkage between them and their European partners; the successful completion of the project will improve the possibilities of including the Bulgarian and Romanian teams in the incentives at European level;

• The elaboration of a web platform for presentation, collaboration and building up of partnership relations between the e-business support organizations will demonstrate the opportunities for provision of e-business related services to the SMEs.