Since it's inception in 1993, not a single global top 100 company have been created by any of the EU countries so the struggle is real.
However I would strongly caution against thinking that reducing paperwork to set up your company is somehow going to magically solve any of the fundamental problems with EUs ability to create sector dominating companies. But even if we assumed it would, that just means that the bigger companies now have even more leverage.
The real problem is deeper. It's about how EU is designed and structured. EU was created as a way to harmonize and standardize regulation between member countries to make trade simpler. (Anyone remember the cucumber directive)
However as technology have improved and manufacturing started supporting a much more bespoke and customized world, the union started started looking at other forms of regulation that went deeper, each step: expanded central authority and
reduced national discretion
We've seen things like one EU Patent court, GDPR, Cookie Law, AI Act, monetary currency all attempts at improving the efficiency of the single market, in reality, none of that have changed the fact that the EU still have not created a single industry leader since it's inception.
It's simply impossible to create a SpaceX, Tesla, Uber, OpenAI, Nvdia, Airbnb, even X, Linkedin or Facebook in Europe, not because of bureaucracy but because of the following 3 things:
1. EU tries to solve problems politically and centrally that startups are much better at solving locally
2. EU utilizes the extreme caution principle on everything and thus end up creating an extreme risk averse approach to what is allowed and what isn't. In effect startups end up creating businesses that the EU allow, rather than what the market need.
3. It's very hard for anyone let alone a startup to challenge the EU regulative system. Yet anyone of the above mentioned companies have constant battles with regulation and legislation. Even those companies can't really win over the EU regulative system, now try and be a startup trying to challenge som of the regulation, good luck.
Europe have plenty of talent and plenty of problems that the startup world could help solve, but as long as the EU politicians compete with their own startup environment at solving these problems no amount of bureaucratic easing is going allow for the full potential of the European talent base.
However I would strongly caution against thinking that reducing paperwork to set up your company is somehow going to magically solve any of the fundamental problems with EUs ability to create sector dominating companies. But even if we assumed it would, that just means that the bigger companies now have even more leverage.
The real problem is deeper. It's about how EU is designed and structured. EU was created as a way to harmonize and standardize regulation between member countries to make trade simpler. (Anyone remember the cucumber directive)
However as technology have improved and manufacturing started supporting a much more bespoke and customized world, the union started started looking at other forms of regulation that went deeper, each step: expanded central authority and reduced national discretion
We've seen things like one EU Patent court, GDPR, Cookie Law, AI Act, monetary currency all attempts at improving the efficiency of the single market, in reality, none of that have changed the fact that the EU still have not created a single industry leader since it's inception.
It's simply impossible to create a SpaceX, Tesla, Uber, OpenAI, Nvdia, Airbnb, even X, Linkedin or Facebook in Europe, not because of bureaucracy but because of the following 3 things:
1. EU tries to solve problems politically and centrally that startups are much better at solving locally 2. EU utilizes the extreme caution principle on everything and thus end up creating an extreme risk averse approach to what is allowed and what isn't. In effect startups end up creating businesses that the EU allow, rather than what the market need. 3. It's very hard for anyone let alone a startup to challenge the EU regulative system. Yet anyone of the above mentioned companies have constant battles with regulation and legislation. Even those companies can't really win over the EU regulative system, now try and be a startup trying to challenge som of the regulation, good luck.
Europe have plenty of talent and plenty of problems that the startup world could help solve, but as long as the EU politicians compete with their own startup environment at solving these problems no amount of bureaucratic easing is going allow for the full potential of the European talent base.