Supporting the EU Inc company formation proposal, in the works for years, aiming to simplify cross-border accounting overhead and national laws overriding EU regulations.
Time for EU to get competitive – this requires trimming 80%+ of the paperwork needed, contradicting laws, and little to no corporate support in a competitive global landscape.
EU IncEU Inc8,992 followers8,992 followers1w • 1 week ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedInFollow
The EU has a once-in-a-generation chance to deliver on a bold new measure with the potential to vastly improve life for scores of startup founders, operators and investors.
But Europe risks Europe-ing itself out of the opportunity.
It’s been less than a year since the startup and investment community spoke up in favour of a ‘hashtag#EUInc’, a pan-European, digital-first legal entity that would enable people to set up, build and scale a company that can operate across EU borders from day one.
More than 16,000 people signed our EU Inc petition, and that momentum led to a window of opportunity to take that notion from wishful thinking to reality. From pipe dream to fact.
And yet, Brussels risks watering down that initial spark, that beautiful idea, into a 27-headed monstrosity that would be valuable and useful to absolutely no one.
That is not what you have voiced your support for, what we advocated and fought for, and – perhaps most importantly – it is not what will enable European companies to become tomorrow’s leaders.
Right now, there is a European Parliament proposal on the table with regards to the ‘28th regime’ (the ‘EU Inc’ principle in EU parlance) to effectively ignore all the work that’s been put into this, and all the support that’s been given to it – not least from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
The report on the ‘28th regime’ currently circulating in Brussels would achieve the exact opposite of the standard EU Inc and its many supporters across Europe have been asking and campaigning for.
The ambition for simplification or harmonisation of incorporation rules, a boost to cross-border building or investment, streamlining all them processes? Based on this proposal, you can consider all that gone.
For one, the report proposes to use a ‘Directive’ rather than a ‘Regulation’, which would render it impossible to deliver a uniform legal framework across all 27 EU Member States. Rather than fixing the fragmentation problem faced by countless companies in Europe, it would preserve it at best, and make it even more cumbersome at worst.
That is not what we signed up for. Europe deserves better than that.
In the coming days, we’re going to share guidance on how to respond to the European Commission’s public consultation on the topic of the 28th regime, empowering you to make your voice heard in response to this inadequate EP proposal.
And today, we are joined by a plethora of startup and investment organisations united in the fight for a real ‘EU Inc’ to point out the terribly meagre proposal from the European Parliament.
We have one chance to get this right. Let’s not squander it.
(Statement linked in comments)
Michael McGrath – Ekaterina Zaharieva – René Repasi – Maria Luís Albuquerque – Pascal Canfin – Stéphane Séjourné – Axel Voss – Kira Marie P. – Henna Virkkunen – Nils Behrndt – Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU 2025 – András G. Inotai – Isidro Laso – Nawid Hemmesi – Andreea Ticheru, PhD – Omar Ennaji
