The Recommendation encourages Member States to reduce administrative, legal and tax barriers to cross-border business transfers and to develop dedicated financing and training programmes to widen the pool of potential successors, including women and other under-represented groups in entrepreneurship. It also promotes digital matchmaking platforms connecting buyers and sellers of businesses.

For retail, where independent shops and family businesses make up a large share of the sector, unresolved succession can mean the loss of jobs, local know-how and, in the Commission's own words, a risk that viable European businesses are acquired by non-European investors instead.

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