In the Action Plan on the Reinforcement of SOLVIT adopted on 2 May 2017, the European Commission draws attention to the limited number of businesses that have so far turned to the Europe-wide service.

The main legal areas for business cases (2016 data) have been taxation and the free movement of services and goods, with a case resolution rate equal to 80%.

The European Commission emphasises that SOLVIT should move towards handling more cases concerning businesses and promoting greater awareness of the support the service can offer businesses, aiming for such activities to be undertaken at national level as well.

Therefore, the European Commission supports initiatives to intensify cooperation with business information and assistance networks, in particular with the European Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), which assists SMEs and start-ups, by asking Member States to undertake similar measures at national level.

In order to facilitate this cooperation, the European Commission has provided an operational manual that sets out the communication procedures between SOLVIT centres and EEN networks.

In recent years, the Department for European Policies has promoted several initiatives to strengthen the cooperation system also at Italian level:

• The seminar on the digital Europe of citizens and businesses - collaborative economy and SOLVIT, organised in the framework of the PA Forum (Rome, 24 May 2018);
• A working session during the Enterprise Europe Network-Italy National Meeting with the Department's intervention presenting the opportunities offered by SOLVIT to EEN contact points, intermediaries and business representative organisations (Venice, 23-24 April 2018);
• The conference on the European Law and Enforcement of the Single European Market Regulations, during which Unioncamere Calabria EEN/Europe Direct distributed a questionnaire for enterprises to perform as territorial antenna of the Italian SOLVIT Centre (Lamezia Terme, 6 March 2018);
• A videoconference with the Italian points of contact of the EEN gathered at the University of Calabria. Opportunities were illustrated for collaboration between SOLVIT-Italy and the territorial contact points of the EEN, along with the possibility of setting up "local antennas" of SOLVIT-Italy so as to offer local businesses a local contact point in cases of cross-border problems caused by incorrect application of EU law by public administrations (Arcavacata di Rende (Cosenza), 13 December 2017);
• A conference in collaboration with Eurosportello Veneto, Unioncamere Veneto, the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce, and the Customs Agency, focussing on the new EU Customs Code and customs regimes, as part of the collaboration initiated by the Department with the six Italian consortia of the EEN. The event was attended by about 40 representatives of enterprises operating in the territory (Belluno, 28 November 2017)
• The presentation of the SOLVIT network at a conference for enterprises, organised by Confcommercio (Milan, 2017)
• A seminar dedicated to enterprises as part of the PA Forum (Rome, May 2017).