Joint statement on the European Competitiveness Fund: clusters, development agencies and industrial regions call for an EU for Business Network built on equal footing

Brussels, 6 November, 2026 — The European Clusters Alliance (ECA), the European Association of Development Agencies (EURADA) and the Vanguard Initiative (VI) have published a joint statement on the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), the EU’s main competitiveness instrument for 2028–2034. The statement was presented by ECA President Antonio Novo Guerrero at the SME & Clusters Assembly in Dublin on 3 November 2026, after approval by the governing bodies of the three organisations.

Why now

The Council has adopted its partial negotiating position on the ECF and the European Parliament is finalising its own. Two of the Fund’s new instruments will decide whether Europe’s competitiveness ambition actually reaches the companies it is meant for: the EU for Business Network (Articles 27–28) and the Single Market Value Chains Builder (Article 16). Both will be delivered — or fail to be delivered — in Europe’s regions.

Who we are

Together, the three organisations bring together the three layers that already connect European priorities to firms on the ground: industry-led cluster organisations, regional development and innovation agencies, and the governments of industrial regions pursuing smart specialisation strategies and interregional innovation cooperation. We share one conviction: company competitiveness, industrial transformation and territorial cohesion reinforce one another, and the ECF’s delivery instruments must build on Europe’s established support structures and territorial strengths.

What we say

Advising an individual company and developing an industrial ecosystem are different jobs, done with different methods and partners. The Enterprise Europe Network, cluster organisations connected through the European Cluster Collaboration Platform, development agencies, regional authorities and European Digital Innovation Hubs each perform a distinct function — and the complementarity already works in practice, from Silicon Europe to the cluster-led Partnerships for Horizon Europe and the MEDIC NEST meta-cluster.

The EU for Business Network should therefore be a multiplier, not a gatekeeper: a “no-wrong-door” network where every company reaches European support through the territorial partner it knows and trusts, where membership of one network is never the sole route to the functions of another, and where participation reflects the real size and diversity of each region’s ecosystem.

Our five requests to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission

1. Recognise the EEN and the cluster organisations connected through the ECCP, on an equal footing and each in its own right, as complementary foundations of the EU for Business Network in the operative provisions of Article 27 — not only in the recitals — alongside development agencies, regional authorities, EDIHs and other competent partners.
2. Establish a no-wrong-door Network with differentiated services, an adaptive service catalogue, several trusted points of access, interoperable referrals, continuity of existing SME support and participation proportional to each region’s ecosystem; connect national contact points to the Network rather than beside it.
3. Co-design the Article 16 Value Chains Builder with industry, cluster organisations, regional innovation ecosystems, regional authorities and development agencies, enabling company-led, cluster-facilitated and region-enabled value-chain portfolios with meaningful SME inclusion.
4. Anchor territorial delivery in smart specialisation and genuine multi-level governance, and preserve a distinct, adequately resourced Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) instrument with effective links to the ECF, Horizon Europe and regional programmes.
5. Match every assigned delivery function with identifiable and predictable support, fair and transparent participation conditions, neutrality safeguards and proportionate, outcome-based accountability.

What we offer

Subject to the decisions of our governing bodies, the three networks stand ready to test a joint referral protocol between EEN consortia, cluster organisations, development agencies and EDIHs in volunteer regions; to contribute to a shared evidence base and European value-chain intelligence; and to provide joint input to the Commission’s work programmes and implementing acts for Articles 16 and 27–28.

Europe does not need to choose between support for individual companies, industrial ecosystem building and cooperation among its regions. It needs all three, working together on equal terms, where firms are located.

Download the full statement (PDF) · [Joint ECF Statement ECA-EURADA-Vanguard Initiative]

About the signatories

The European Clusters Alliance is the European voice of cluster organisations — a community of more than 1,250 cluster organisations across the 27 Member States, with some 155,000 member organisations, 83% of them SMEs (ECCP Summary Report 2025). EURADA is the European Association of Development Agencies. The Vanguard Initiative is the network of industrial regions committed to smart specialisation and interregional innovation cooperation. Contact: contact@clustersalliance.eu