Page 3 - EE Times Europe Magazine - June 2025

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Got an Idea? Start and Scale

in Just 48 Hours

What if you could create a startup in locally. For investors, it would mean investing with confidence across
48 hours that could operate across all borders.
27 member states under a single, unified Inevitably, talk of a 28th regime takes us back 20 years to when Frits
set of rules? Bolkestein, a Dutch liberal politician and EU commissioner, introduced
We have covered the annual Choose an eponymous directive to eliminate trade barriers in the European
France summit since its 2018 inception. services sector. Protests abounded. Some trade unions and small
Tens of billions of euros in foreign invest- business associations were outraged, fearing unfair competition. In
ment and the creation of tens of thousands France, in particular, the debate crystallized around the figure of the
of French jobs are purportedly in play each Polish plumber, seen as a threat to France’s (almost) untouchable labor
year when the industry gathers at the Palace of Versailles, but don’t be protection laws.
dazzled by the numbers. For example, progress has stalled on the Yet the recurring topic is not necessarily a lost cause. A European
€7.5 billion 300-mm fab project that STMicroelectronics and company status is not only a familiar concept but exists in fact: Twenty
GlobalFoundries announced with great fanfare at the 2022 summit, years ago, the EU introduced the Societas Europaea (SE), a European
casting doubt on whether the fab will ever materialize. public limited company designed to facilitate cross-border operations.
Now Europe is looking to promulgate the Choose France concept Airbus is a notable example.
across the EU—or at least is adopting the same slogan. So why do we need a 28th regime? According to the Center for
On May 5, the EC launched the Choose Europe for Science initiative, European Policy Analysis, the SE was, and remains, an impractical
allocating a €500 million envelope from 2025 to 2027 “to make Europe tool for start-
a magnet for researchers,” as EC President Ursula von der Leyen put ups. Companies
it. The initiative was unveiled shortly after the Trump administration seeking SE status
announced plans to end certain research programs and cut billions of must already
dollars’ worth of university research funding in the U.S. be well estab-
On May 28, the EC unveiled the Choose Europe to Start and Scale lished in several
strategy to make Europe “the best place in the world” to launch and member states.
grow global technology-driven companies. SE also imposes
The strategy states that European startups often face two “valleys of rigid governance
death.” The first occurs when innovations fail to become marketable requirements
products; the second occurs when companies struggle to scale up. The and high capital
latter is a particularly difficult task in Europe. thresholds that
When the strategy was announced, one measure earned plaudits are out of reach
within the technology ecosystem: the “28th regime,” a supranational for early-stage
legal structure that aims to facilitate the creation of companies that companies.
can operate anywhere on the continent. A 28th regime
In her keynote at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, would offer
von der Leyen said, “We will make sure to create a conducive environ- European aspir-
ment for our SMEs to scale up their capacity to build, produce, and ing entrepreneurs what their U.S. counterparts have always taken for
innovate in Europe. But I want to go even further than this. Today, the granted: one company, one set of rules for the entire continent.
European single market still has too many national barriers. Some- As for scaling up, Future Horizons CEO Malcolm Penn recently had a
times companies are dealing with 27 national legislation [frameworks]. mic drop moment when he said, “The key is to have a long-term vision
We will offer instead to innovative companies to operate all across of where you want to be in 10 years and what roadmap you need to
our Union under one single set of rules. We call it the 28th regime. have to get there. Without that longer-term perspective, you will never
Corporate law, insolvency, labor law, taxation—one single and simple be able to navigate through transitions. You have got to be determined
framework across our Union. This will help bring down the most com- and global. You can’t only rely on your local market. TSMC never relied
mon barriers to scaling up all across Europe, because continental scale on Taiwan. The excuse is often, ‘There is no end market in Europe. It’s
is our greatest asset in a world of giants.” too small.’ But that’s just an excuse. The market is the world, and you
The EC is currently working on the details but expects that by early should be going through the world.” ■
2026, it will be possible to set up a European company in just 48 hours,
limiting the administrative burdens and costs for operating across the
continent.
IMAGE: ADOBE STOCK with the publication of Mario Draghi’s September 2024 report on —Anne-Françoise Pelé,
The concept of a 28th regime, a recurring topic in Europe, resurfaced
European competitiveness and the EU Inc petition, launched by
European founders and investors in October to promote a standardized
pan-European corporate structure for European startups.
For founders, that would mean starting on a European scale, not just
editor-in-chief of EE Times Europe
www.eetimes.eu | JUNE 2025