Entrepreneurship Development in European Union - Challenges and Opportunities for Young People

At the European Union level, the importance of entrepreneurship and supporting young people's intentions to open and develop new businesses was highlighted. In this context, the purpose of our research is to analyze the challenges of entrepreneurship among young people, in a comparative perspective, relating the perspective of Romanians to that of the citizens of the European Union, in general. The research pursued four objectives: (1) identification of personal and social reasons for entrepreneurial activity; (2) investigation of barriers to entrepreneurial activity; (3) identifying the necessary support resources for starting a business; (4) the analysis of the variables that influence the preference of young people to become entrepreneurs. The analysis of the results was based on data published in 2022, in Euro barometer 513 - Social entrepreneurship and youth. The data were processed combining both descriptive and inferential analysis (binary logistic regression). The results show that, both at the level of Romania and European Union, the most important reason why young people want to be entrepreneurs is the freedom to choose the working conditions (time, location) and to be their own boss. At the same time, the main barriers that block young people in their initiative to become entrepreneurs are the lack of education, financial resources, legal, administrative, and personal aspects. Young people in Romania, like everyone else in the European Union, need to be supported, especially educationally and financially, to open a business. They are prepared, for the necessary initial investment, to call on their own resources (savings or salary), but also on external sources (family, friends, and banking institutions). The results estimate the relationship between the entrepreneurship intention of young people and a set of factors, underlying several differences between Romanian young people and those from EU27.  Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Young People, European Union, Entrepreneurship, Motivation, Challenges.