The issue is that most member states and the EU itself are not business-friendly.
For instance, incorporation online, for cheap, with no red tape, and in a matter of hours should be the norm everywhere. The UK has it.
Even at EU level the mindset is not pro-business and competition among member states is frowned upon (that's partly why they always want "harmonisation" so that there is no pressure to improve).
JumpinJack_Cash•4h ago
> > For instance, incorporation online, for cheap, with no red tape, and in a matter of hours should be the norm everywhere. The UK has it.
Not even the US has it, the UK is the gold standard but the red tape then moves to the opening the bank account
mytailorisrich•3h ago
Having done it, the red tape is not more than opening a personal account. It takes 10 minutes to apply but takes a few days to go through.
throwaway798214•4h ago
EU is not a single country and starting a business varies from one member state to another. I currently own a business in both Finland and Portugal, and I can start a new business in Finland, online, without even stepping into the country in about half an hour and by the end of the day company is fully operational. Portugal however works in a traditional way with lawyers and actual physical paperwork and signatures and takes forever.
Of course completely different thing is that while starting a company in Finland takes half an hour getting a bank account to your company might take 3-6 months if you even manage to get one. I had a good relationship with my Finnish bank and I had been a customer for over 40 years and when I asked about a business account they just said "no we are not going to give you an account and this is final" without even asking for any paperwork. This is not just because of banks, it's mostly because of KYC. Luckily there are new banks which really want customers and I assume that if I wanted to start a new company in Finland _today_ I could get both the government side and a bank account done in half a day and start billing the next day.
FearNotDaniel•3h ago
There’s already such a thing as an “SE” business registration, which is a pan-European publicly traded entity [0]. Presumably this is talking about a similar, privately owned structure?
mytailorisrich•5h ago
For instance, incorporation online, for cheap, with no red tape, and in a matter of hours should be the norm everywhere. The UK has it.
Even at EU level the mindset is not pro-business and competition among member states is frowned upon (that's partly why they always want "harmonisation" so that there is no pressure to improve).
JumpinJack_Cash•4h ago
Not even the US has it, the UK is the gold standard but the red tape then moves to the opening the bank account
mytailorisrich•3h ago
throwaway798214•4h ago
Of course completely different thing is that while starting a company in Finland takes half an hour getting a bank account to your company might take 3-6 months if you even manage to get one. I had a good relationship with my Finnish bank and I had been a customer for over 40 years and when I asked about a business account they just said "no we are not going to give you an account and this is final" without even asking for any paperwork. This is not just because of banks, it's mostly because of KYC. Luckily there are new banks which really want customers and I assume that if I wanted to start a new company in Finland _today_ I could get both the government side and a bank account done in half a day and start billing the next day.