The last of a series of international workshops of the ValueFacturing SMEs project took place in Brussels on 13 May 2025, where the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry was also present as an active project partner.

After the short keynote and introductory speaches by Fabio Ramaioli, National Director, Confimi Industria, and Barbara Arsieni, International Relations Officer, FIM-CISL, two roundtable discussons were held.

In the first one ’Strategies and hurdles for SMEs to thrive in global value chains’, with the participation of Antonio Grasso, Public Affairs Director, European DIGITAL SME Alliance, Sergio Ventricelli, Vice President, Confimi Industria, and the online the participation of Glenda Quintini, Head of Skills and Future Readiness, Senior Economist, OECD, and in the second roundtable ’Means and tools to guarantee competitiveness, decent work conditions and quality jobs’, with the participation of Mirko Dolzadelli, Secretary General, FIM CISL Lombardia, Dr. Wouter Zwysen, Senior Researcher, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), and Prof. Dr. Huib Huyse, Head of the research group Sustainable Development, Research Institute for Labour and Society (HIVA-KU Leuven) the speakers have discussed key factors of better intergration of SMEs in the European Global Value Chains (GVCs).

Not only do SMEs make up the backbone of the economy, but they bring in real innovations, thus their involvement is crucial for SMEs, and any actors of the economy.

The experts pointed out how the leadership of SME’s managers is important, such as being aware of their workers’ skills is cruical to assess skill needs and seek training solutions for further development to be more competitive and active in global value chains.

European SMEs need more digital skills, need to invests in digital skills, or in skills development, need to have a better overview of the legislative and administrative opportunities through which they can access better finance to be able to penetrate global value chains.

Finally the key takeaways from the project’s research report towards the decalogue was presented by Margherita Roiatti, Director, Fondazione ADAPT. The ValueFacturing SMEs project’s final product in the form of a Decalogue for SMEs will discuss points such as encouraging participative management, and strengthening social dialogue to foster EU wide cooperation, in addition to the afore mentioned topics.