Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
Distinguished participants of the International Business Competition, my name is Elisabeth Freismuth, I am director general at the federal Ministry of Science and Research.

For me it is a great pleasure and honor addressing you on the occasion of this International Meeting, taking place in Vienna. First of all I would like to present the best compliments of the federal Minister , Dr. Johannes Hahn. Unfortunately due to another scheduled appointment Minister Hahn cannot participate at today’s event.

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank all of you, for taking part in this important Business Competition to improve your personal skills in entrepreneur competencies. This competition targets on the most important educational and political goals of the European Educational Policy:

• Mobility
• Transparency
• Entrepreneurship
  
  

Being aware of these challenges, the European Union has invited all Member States to develop the European Qualification Framework (EQF) which defines entrepreneurship skills as one of the 8 key competences. Simultaneously the Austrian Government is working on a National Qualification Framework too, which is going to fulfill the same task.

It is a fact, that all European education systems need better motivated people, who are not afraid of getting in contact with business. Therefore we need to improve and to extend the good cooperation between schools, universities, universities of applied sciences and economy.

The fast development of the European Business Competence License is a magnificent example for the increased requirement of entrepreneurship skills in our society nowadays. And Austria takes an important position! At the moment you can count more than 15.000 successful business exams in about 130 centers in all parts of Austria.

The benefit for Austria are

• a strengthened education system enclosing more business competencies
• a strengthened competitiveness for our companies and
• an improvement of a positive attitude to the economy in our society.
  
  

Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the representatives of the International Centre of the European Business Competence License for their commitment in equipping business skills. The participation of so many European countries with different languages is a great example of your enormous success and I would like to congratulate all of you, participating successfully in this year’s Business Championsleague Competition. All of you, pupils, students, employees and other participants of the educational courses,

• YOU represent a very important part of our society
• and with all your entrepreneurship skills YOU can support the economy in all of your countries for future prosperity and social welfare.

A famous Italian film producer Dino de LAURENTI’S once explained the 3 needs for an excellent film maker: cuore cervello coraggio: the heart – the brain – the courage.

I would therefore like to wish you a good balance between cuore, cervello and coraggio for your professional work and your sustainable results – ready for global economy.