The vital importance of small and medium enterprises sector for the European economies, including for their relaunch, as well as the major negative effects of the current global crisis on bank financing of these enterprises, have prioritized the concerns of the decision makers at EU level in order to initiate actions for development of alternative financing instruments. The intended purpose of the undertaken European actions is to reduce excessive reliance of SMEs on bank loans and their vulnerabilities in potential future financial crisis. In this context, our paper aims to emphasis the need to improve the access to finance for SMEs and to highlight the main initiatives of the EU in order to develop alternative sources of financing of such enterprises, which can complement bank financing.