Ambassador Dusko Lopandić and Elżbieta Bieńkowska, European Commissioner for the internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs on 10 November in Brussels signed an Agreement on the participation of Serbia in the EU Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Programme - COSME. Agreement between the European Union and Serbia shall enter into force on 1 January 2016 and it confirms participation of our country in the Program until 2020. The Ministry of Economy will be responsible for the coordination and implementation. COSME will support projects for financing activities aimed at raising the competitiveness and the establishment and growth of SMEs in Serbia. The program will enable better promotion of entrepreneurship, facilitate access to finance and it will contribute to the internationalization of our SMEs. Serbian small and medium-sized enterprises will be able to compete under the same conditions with companies from the EU member states and other partner countries for the projects financed by COSME. This will enable our companies to prepare for the future membership in the EU and to already use various instruments offered by the EU programs.

COSME is running from 2014 to 2020 with a budget of €2.3bn.