Allied for Startups is announcing an open consultation with startup associations to identify our Priorities for the 2024 EU elections. Although the election priorities consultation seems far away, for policy makers ‘election mode’ will start much earlier. Actually, in some countries some Parties are already setting up lists with candidates. There is a great opportunity to make sure political candidates are aware of and supporting a growth agenda for startups. 

Flashback: In the past decade, many Manifestos, reports and standards were published with the goal of improving the situation for entrepreneurs across the EU. These included the ScaleUp Manifesto, the Startup Nations Standard, the Startup Europe Report and Recommendations for Startup powered post-COVID recovery. 

The plethora of prior Manifestos lead to two observations: 1) There is still much to do! 2) Many of these documents contained similar asks, leading to the conclusion that we have an implementation problem. That is one of the reasons why this report will build on existing Manifestos, as opposed to reinventing the wheel. Ultimately, this Priority List will also be about showing policy makers that it’s not enough to just promise change to startups, but that concrete action to back up these promises will be needed.

In the months ahead, we will collect feedback from across startup communities in Europe. Thereafter we will prepare a draft and share it with Members for feedback.Startup visas, stock options, completing the Digital Single Market, an innovation principle – what should be in the Priority List? Send your pain points, suggestions and 1-liners to us and reach out if you’re looking to be an ecosystem partner.