What is Europe for Business?
Europe for Business is an EU policy and European business development consultancy: it acts as a practical and user-friendly interface to translate the theory of EU policy into practical benefits for clients in Europe and in countries applying for EU membership.

Our approach is holistic in all senses - sectoral, transnational, conceptual, and cultural - and our style is cooperative: we work with clients and not in isolation from them.

OUR MISSION:
w To create commercial and professional opportunities
w To help clients assess and exploit the effect of EU policies
w To make it easier and more profitable for clients to do business in Europe and the applicant states

SPECIFIC SERVICES:
Eligibility assessment for EU grants and help to prepare funding proposals

Tracking, monitoring, analysis, impact assessment and early warning of EU policies and legislation

Identification and development of key strategic contacts in Europe

Strategy planning and development

Market research Europe-wide

Training for effective communication in unfamiliar business cultures

PERSONNEL:
Europe for Business has been active since 1978, when it was founded in Hove (UK) by Lindsay Wittenberg. In May 2004, Fabrizio De Francesco and Leonardo Piccinetti moved Europe for Business to Brussels. They have a 5 years experience in consulting activities in European public policies. They has been monitoring, analysing and interpreting EU policy and law in order to create development opportunities for professional and commercial clients. This has included engaging with officials of the EU institutions for the purposes both of gaining an inside track to policy developments and of influencing those developments.

Consultancy assignments have involved: the creation of strategic opportunities for clients' organisational development, the development of strategies for the exploitation of those opportunities, the establishment and nurturing of strategic relationships, and the design and delivery of training programmes on, for example, cultural awareness and the euro, and project management.

In particular relation to EU funding, Europe for Business covers: eligibility assessment for EU funding, the creative development of project ideas, project definition, planning, structuring and design, preparation of funding proposals, and negotiation with the European Commission and with local and regional government agencies. These skills are backed by additional research capability and an experienced administrative infrastructure.

Fabrizio De Francesco holds a MA in European Integration (Bradford University). He is currently a research fellow and PhD student at the University of Exeter, Department of Politics. His research interests are regulation, regulatory reform, the better regulation policy at the EU and member states level, regulatory impact analysis. He has been collaborating in Europe for Business since June 1999, mainly monitoring funding opportunity.

Leonardo Piccinetti holds a MA in European Integration (Sussex University). He is currently a PhD student in Newcastle University in European Studies and author 20 pubblications in EU-related issues. Consultant for several public agencies and regional authorities . Leonardo is expert SME development, EU Enlargerment, IST, Innovation and R&D (Languages English/Spanish/Italian/French).

Donatella Santoro holds a Postgraduate Diploma University Free in Brussels in EU External Relations. She is a legal advisor and expert in Intellectual Property Rights and Trade and EU-South America programmes. (Languages English/Spanish/Italian)