The COVID-19 crisis brought to an abrupt halt or even reversed the gains made by the EU SME sector
over the past decade. However, the various business support measures implemented by Member
States during the pandemic limited the employment impact of the decline in economic activity.
The first part of this report reviews the impact of the pandemic on EU SMEs in 2020, and the likely
performance of EU SMEs in 2021, after providing a brief overview of their pre-pandemic
performance.
The second part of the report focuses on the digitalisation of SMEs. The use by SMEs in 2020 of
various digital tools (e.g. remote working, online/click and collect selling, etc.) helped to mitigate
the impact of the pandemic. In this regard, the 2020 ‘EU SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital
Europe’ was launched at the most opportune time. It aims to “support European SMEs through
strengthening their capacities to adapt to climate neutrality challenges, help them to reap the
benefits of digitalisation, reduce the regulatory burden that SMEs face, and improve their
opportunitiesto access finance”. This report supports the SME Strategy, by reviewing and assessing
the digitalisation activities undertaken by SMEs so far, especially during the pandemic, as well as
the digitalisation issues and challenges faced by SMEs, and actual and potential policy responses
to these challenges.