Abstract. In the European Union, the Europe 2020 strategy seeks to obtain a smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth that ensures high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. On the other hand, Europe 2020 strategy also supports the overcoming of the current economic crisis, which has caused and continues to cause effects in various sectors of the economy. In this context, the system of companies represents the "heart" of this strategy of growth of the European economy. Encouraging the SME sector is an important concern at European Union level, considering that SMEs are key drivers for economic recovery. The paper focuses on SMEs because at European Union level they accounted for 99.8% of total non-financial businesses. The crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of these enterprises, and of all the problems facing this system, we will focus on the one that targets the impact of the crisis on the active population of SMEs in Romania, compared with the European Union.

Keywords: small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Europe 2020 strategy, economic crisis, employment, economic growth.