Has ERDF support to SMEs in the area of e‑commerce been effective?

Summary:

In recent years, the EU has co-financed e-commerce projects in the context of its cohesion policy with the support of the European Regional Development Fund. In this report, the European Court of Auditors assesses whether e-commerce projects were successful in supporting ICT uptake by SMEs by auditing a sample of EU co-financed e-commerce projects in Greece, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. The Court concludes that the ERDF support to e-commerce projects contributed to increasing the availability of business services online. However, it also concludes that shortcomings in the monitoring made it impossible to assess to what extent it contributed to the achievement of the EU and Member States’ ICT strategies as well as SMEs’ development objectives.

• Primary Source

• Alternative Source

ESO Records

Website: Electronic commerce http://www.europeansources.info/record/website-online-services/

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