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The life of an enterprise isn't always rosy; we tend to forget that some entrepreneurs may not be initially successful and their businesses may face serious problems or even collapse. At the same time, learning from mistakes and negative experiences can help make people better entrepreneurs and succeed in the future.

The Spring 2016 edition of Panorama is now available online and features several articles which detail various types of support provided by the European Commission to help Member States make the best possible use of Cohesion Policy funding and to address problems with implementation.

EU's Assembly of local and regional authorities has voted today a set of measures to progress on environmental law implementation in Europe. At stake is the current lack of coherence and consistency in monitoring and reporting to ensure environmental legislation is effectively applied . Amongst the adopted measures is to automatize and digitalise reporting tools and to establish guidance documents and implementation scorecards.

An eLearning tool has been launched to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) learn about standardisation in a quick and easy way. Standards provide SMEs with a vital competitive edge. The benefits of standards can be gained both from using them and from participating in the process of revising or developing them.

The European Commission has presented an Action Plan setting out ways to reboot the current EU VAT system to make it simpler, more fraud-proof and business-friendly. The current VAT rules urgently need to be updated so they can better support the Single Market, facilitate cross-border trade and keep pace with today's digital and mobile economy.

The 7th European Summit of Regions and Cities was officially launched on 5 April by the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), the City of Bratislava and the Bratislava Region. Under the title "Invest and Connect" the Summit will be held in Bratislava on 8-9 July just a week after Slovakia takes over the rotating six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU for the very first time.

Local leaders have given consumers a push to be at the heart of the new energy market in Europe. Facilitating access to information through ICT, developing a standard, detailed and easily understandable energy bill across Europe, protecting consumers against abusive practices and setting up price safeguards are amongst the key proposals adopted today in Brussels by EU's Assembly of regional and local authorities.

The LOGIN Startup Fair is one of the most important gatherings in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for regional startups and international investors. This year, special attention will be paid to technology education from a very early age with a particular emphasis on empowering girls to enter high-tech industry.

On 5 April the JRC presented the interactive and collaborative online European Energy Efficiency Platform. This beta platform is conceived to fill the gap opened by scattered data and fragmented knowledge resulting from a rapidly growing energy efficiency market. It is expected to be both a one-stop shop for information retrieval and a meeting point for experts to exchange data and reduce redundant activities.

DG Regio has released a new draft regional Social Progress Index (SPI) for stakeholder feedback and public comments. It aims to measure the social progress level for 272 European regions as a complement to traditional measures of economic progress based on GDP, income and employment. Measuring social progress can inform the development strategies of the EU regions.

The European Commission has published an update on the progress made by EU countries in simplifying start-up procedures in 2015. Simplification of administrative procedures remains high on the EU political agenda. The Commission regularly monitors progress by all EU countries in simplifying start-up procedures and reducing the time and cost of starting a company.

A team set up to help a number of Member States use EU funds more efficiently has completed its intensive work schedule, which included more than 100 technical meetings and seminars. In cooperation with eight countries, the Task Force for Better Implementation (TFBI) has eased bottlenecks and backlogs in the allocation and spending of EU Structural Funds.