Europe 500 - Listing of high growth, job-creating companies

The 2005 issue of the annual "Europe's 500" pan-European ranking of high-growth, job-creating companies, published by Europe's 500 Entrepreneurs for Growth illustrates the fast growth of SMEs and confirms the idea that the success of the revised Lisbon Strategy, renamed "Partnership for Growth and Jobs" by the European Commission, largely depends on SMEs.

Five hundred of Europe's fastest growing medium sized companies have created some 130,000 jobs across all sectors of industry over the last three years. The companies (employment between 100 and 1000 people) maintained annual growth in 2001-2003 of 15%. The Europe's 500 'champions of growth' grew by 14% annually and increased their turnover by 14%.