EN
The important share in employment both in old and new EU member states is represented by the self-employers. The self-employment in the advanced economies has become more and more the demonstration of utilization of the business opportunities and has let up to be the demonstration of the necessity resulted from the threatened unemployment. The article briefly analyzes development of the self-employment in those selected EU countries that simultaneously run the support programmes of self-employment and compares the expenditures on start-up programmes of self-employers in Slovakia and in these selected countries. In addition the article brings the actual knowledge from the EU advanced countries on the programmes and services for beginning entrepreneurs that could be exploited in Slovakia.