 Dear delegates to the SME assembly ladies and gentlemen, my name is Michael Murphy and I'm the president of the Econ Commission of the European Committee of the Regions. I have the honour to address you today with an announcement of a new call for application for the European Entrepreneurial Region Award. Togetherness and resilience equals recovery is this year's motto of the SME assembly. I'm therefore very pleased that you've managed to come together in person in Slovenia to discuss how to build back better, putting small and medium enterprises at the heart of the European recovery. The recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is underway and it is place-based. It's happening in our regions and cities across the continent, but there is one serious concern. The recovery is not even across the Union. There is evidence that disparities between regions but also among rural and urban territories are under rise due to a differentiated territorial impact of the pandemic. In the European Committee of the Regions we strongly believe that regions and territories, populated by entrepreneurial minded societies, are more able to overcome crises and return faster on the path of growth. Therefore we elected local and regional representatives believe in the power of a bottom-up action supporting entrepreneurship as a vital contribution to building resilient and sustainable communities. For over 10 years our communities has been systematically awarding regions and cities with the most convincing entrepreneurial vision and policy strategy. The EER has become a recognised label of excellence, linking like-minded regions with a European network and supporting their collaboration and exchange of best practices across the borders. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to open the call for application for the 2023 European entrepreneurial region. The overarching team of this EER edition is entrepreneurship and resilience committees. I would therefore like to invite all sub-national authorities at regional and local level to apply for the EER award. The deadline for applications is 29 March 2022. I thank you for your attention and I wish you passionate and fruitful discussions at this year's SME assembly.