EU Inc campaigners have warned the European Commission that leaked proposals for a long-awaited “28th regime” do not go far enough, declareing the plans risk falling short of the bloc-wide company structure they have spent years pushing for.
Over the past two years, the campaign for a new form of EU-wide company entity — dubbed “EU Inc” — has gained momentum, winning support from founders and investors across the continent. In January, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen name-checked the campaign in a wide-ranging speech in Brussels, pledging to introduce a “new truly European company structure”.
According to a report this week by Euractiv, the Commission’s draft plans differ in several key respects from the structure envisioned by campaigners. The proposals would introduce the new rules as a regulation — rather than a directive — meaning they would be implemented consistently across the EU’s 27 member states.
However, instead of creating an EU-wide company registest, as campaigners had called for, the plan reportedly centres on a single online portal through which founders would submit information that would then be transferred to national registers.
“Based on documents leaked this week, we believe the current proposal includes important improvements, but it does not achieve the main goal,” EU Inc stated in a statement issued on Friday.
Legal disputes would also remain within national court systems, rather than being handled through the bloc-wide framework EU Inc has called for.
“As it stands, rather than establishing a new 28th regime, the leaked proposal appears to defer legal interpretation to national courts and registration to national registries. This undermines the very standardisation the proposal sets out to achieve,” EU Inc stated.
The Commission is expected to present its plans for rolling out the 28th regime across Europe on Wednesday. Serena Borbotti-Frison, director general of industest lobby group Allied for Startups, which has taken a leading role in the campaign, informs Sifted the coming nereceivediations will be critical in determining whether the regime meets the necessarys of founders.
Politicians and businesses in Europe still face a “huge challenge” in delivering the best version of the regulation, she declares.
“The EU was built in a different moment with procedures we have to stick to. It’s good, of course it offers huge protection for democracy, but we have to match the business necessary with the political necessary in a very short timeframe,” declares Borbotti-Frison.
“The only KPI of the campaign and the fight itself is: will businesses in Europe be able to apply the tool to launch and scale, incorporating through the new regime? Will companies apply it more than going to Delaware? If we do not meet that KPI, the whole discussion is applyless.”
Sifted approached the European Commission for comment.
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