> Which brings me to the second focus – investment and capital. We are now building the Savings and Investment Union. We need a large-scale, deep and liquid capital market that attracts a wide range of investors. This will allow businesses to find the funding they need – including equity – at lower cost here in Europe. We have made proposals on market integration and supervision to ensure our financial market is more integrated. This covers trading, post-trading, and asset management – as well as driving innovation and making our supervisory framework more efficient. This will help ensure that capital flows where it is needed – to scaleups, to SMEs, to innovation, to industry.
> Third priority: building an interconnected and affordable energy market – a true energy union. Energy is a chokepoint – for both companies and households. Just look at the dispersion of prices across European electricity hubs. Europe needs an energy blueprint that pulls together all the parts. This is our Affordable Energy Action Plan. For example, we are investing massively in our energy security and independence, with interconnectors and grids – this is for the homegrown energies that we are trying to promote as much as possible, nuclear and renewables. To bring down prices and cut dependencies. To put an end to price volatility, manipulation and supply shock. But we now need to speed up this transition. Because homegrown, reliable, resilient and cheaper energy will drive our economic growth, deliver for Europeans and secure our independence.
All this in a country where electricity was almost free (to be fair, our dismantling of nuclear doesn’t help here)
The solution to which is to generate even more power in Sweden (so you can sell it off cheap and have it cheap too) or that Germany produces power more cheaply so that it's not giving Sweden so much money for electricity. Both of these should happen if the market is set up well.
Unification needs to be real, including grids, not on paper only.
> Just look at the dispersion of prices across European electricity hubs.
Same Swedes were complaining (and still are!) about having to bail out the poorer members of the Union, should Sweden adopt the Euro and have a tighter integration with the Eurozone.
The common motivation of the EU is to smooth out these things across the countries, so we don't have these wild differences between countries. That might mean electricity gets more expensive for some members, and cheaper for others, but overall should lead to better usage across everyone. Basically socialism, applied to energy, so if you're OK with that for people, health and other things, maybe it makes sense to be fine with it for energy too?
What? Yes, it did work for the Euro, countries that are participating are now more equal than they were before, which is the goal. Who knows what will happen in the future, maybe Greece or someone else will truly sink the entire union, but it hasn't happened yet, so lets not confidently claim "it didn't work".
> my parents putting up solar panels to offset german fears of nuclear is far away from them paying taxes so their neighbor can get health care
That's been the thinking for a long time, but for how long can we continue thinking like this? If the world is fucked, it'll be fucked for all of us, not just for people in Sweden or Germany, so the faster we can realize we're all in the same boat, the better.
The same boat is actually a good metaphor, you tend to want many smaller ones and not one big, risk of losing everything vs something (to a point).
Yes, quite literally "hey lets suffer together", this is what we've signed up to, and want. Good for everyone and bad for everyone, we're linked and this helps us focus more on helping each other, rather than just focusing on ourselves.
> The same boat is actually a good metaphor, you tend to want many smaller ones and not one big, risk of losing everything vs something (to a point).
Yeah, that's probably the two mindsets that differ here. EU was created with the goal of "better one big boat than many small", because we've tried the "many small boats" approach for millennials, and somehow we in Europe always end up starting wars against each other. We've had (more or less) continent-wide peace now, for a good while (maybe the longest it's ever been? Not sure), and probably because of the reason that we're more connected now, instead of sitting alone in our tiny boats.
Currencies aren’t an asset. They don’t “outperform”.
If the Yuan had “outperformed” the Chinese economic system would have collapsed.
Previously Sweden was much tighter coupled to German prices, but since fossil fuels were cheap people didn’t really notice.
Today due to CO2 cap and trade fossil emissions are expensive. [1]
Couple it with a massive renewable buildout leading to a decoupling of the prices that didn’t happened before.
We now have maximum volatility. Jumping between expensive fossil prices and an absolutely mindbogglingly large surplus leading to essentially free energy.
As Germany, and the rest of Europe, transitions to renewables we will spend less and less time on fossil fuel marginal prices and see our energy systems stabilize on renewable and storage prices. Outside of emergency reserve style situations.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...
That doesn't mean we shouldn't still aim for the values we stand for.
Someone doing something is always better than no one doing anything, can we at least agree on that?
With that said, more investments into other energy sources are totally welcome, and I don't think that should mean we also need to tax pollution less, we can have both :)
I don't think it's a hard mindset to understand, giving up because others aren't taking it as seriously is the cowardly way to go about it. It's much more meaningful to show it can be done, help to scale technologies to become cheaper and more accessible for poorer countries, and inspire others with examples that it can be done so action can spread.
[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-invest...
If a person is taking lifesaving medicine that unfortunately makes their skin itch, you wouldn't call itchiness "a problem which they have created themselves in the first place"...
Our path forward are through renewables, which today are vastly cheaper than fossil fuels.
We decide the speed of the transition to green cheap energy by how much we tax fossil fuels. Low taxes = slow transition. High taxes = fast transition.
The faster we get off fossil fuels the better.
The growth in the US is much smaller than Europe, except a few cases like California.
Just heard about this initiative as a European, I don't have an opinion yet.
Same! I'm cautiously optimistic, but need to await the criticism from the Americans before I can fully know what to think about it. I'm sure it'll pop up here any time soon, NYC is just about to wake up.
It's not. However from the speech it sounds like the commission is ready to put forward their proposal soon-ish
After they do so the actual legislative process is going to start where the draft has to go through Parliament and the Council to become law
The legislative process is going to take time which is where the 2027 date in eu-inc.org comes from
I don't know if there will be legal or political issues around this that would delay adoption though
> While both aim to facilitate cross-border operations within the EU, EU-Inc addresses some of the limitations of SE:
> - No minimum capital requirement: Unlike SE, which has a minimum capital requirement of €120,000, EU-Inc has no minimum capital requirement, making it more accessible for startups.
> - Simplified governance structure: EU-Inc offers a more streamlined governance structure compared to SE, reducing administrative burden and promoting flexibility.
> - Digital ecosystem: EU-Inc is supported by a robust online ecosystem, including a digital registry and dashboard, for efficient management and compliance, which is lacking for SE.
[1] https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/ [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house
What is revolutionary (in context of EU of course) is easier business operation across different countries, a real bottleneck for EU SMEs.
Is it actually a "real bottleneck" for EU SMEs? Granted, I've only participated in help growing 3 companies from the scale of 3-4 developers > ~100-150 and from national sales to international, but "going worldwide" or "EU wide" was never the bottleneck we had. The most tricky part was figuring out exactly how to do VAT for every single country, but after a session with a accountant + setting up the guidelines + creating a .csv, that's basically it. Besides that, it was basically smooth sailing.
Today I'm sure there even are hosted services that does all of that stuff automatically for you, probably with Stripe integration as well.
What exactly is that bottleneck you're referring to?
The claim was that "business operation across different countries" is a "a real bottleneck for EU SMEs" currently, I don't think that has anything to do with investors?
As someone who lives in EU, been skeptical of it for most my life, but for the last 3-4 years kind of turned around on the idea of a stronger EU and more independent Europe, I'm really glad to see and hear that things are swiftly moving ahead. Things like this may seem relatively small, especially with everything going around, but these sort of partnerships and agreements really do have a large impact on the next decades, and I hope we'll see more of this. Fair trade is something we've taken for granted, but we've again learned that it's something you have to fight for, and I'm happy to live in the EU who seem to still realize it's important.
Then there are ongoing regulations like needing to have a resident director, so if you're a single-director company you can't move your personal residence even to another European country without shutting down your business and re-establishing it in your new country.
Running it also changes from country to country, so if you move you have to speak to new accounts and lawyers in your new country about how tax and vat and other legalities work.
In theory, this would let you do all of that once, hopefully all online and in a simpler and faster way. Then it should also be easier to hire and sell to all EU countries without doing a complicated dance of employment regulations and VAT compliance.
That would be ideal anyway. Not sure if or when we'll get there.
So 27 individual implementations of this, as opposed to the current 27 different implementations of how to incorporate and assign equity?
Seems… silly?
I’m all for making it more attractive to create startups in the EU… But I don’t think a directive is the right way
Probably in just 3 to 5 years they could open a working group to outline an agenda for a committee which would prepare blueprints of the primary proposals.
I haven't looked too deeply into it, but my understanding is that it's not possible to create an equivalent corporation in Italy (where I reside) nor the rest of Europe.
I would love to be proven wrong though.
You certainly did not look deep enough. ;)
Ask Mr Google about gGmbH in Germany, for example.
Honestly, I would be incredibly surprised if every single European country does not already have a non-profit structure.
In addition, do not forget that in some countries you might also have the option of being non-profit not through legal-form (e.g. gGmbH in Germany) but via your articles of association, i.e. you set up a "standard" company and then formally declare it a non-profit. This is something your friendly local company lawyer would be need to help with as it requires the correct words to be drafted into your articles if you want e.g. the tax authorities to correctly recognise your status.
As the old saying goes ... what has that got to do with the price of eggs ?
A non-profit is a non-profit, doesn't matter if you are supporting Open Source or the community homeless.
Same goes for donors. A donation is a donation.
Codeberg e.v. (a.k.a. Forgejo) is one example that comes to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.
I made the mistake of leaving this unsaid, but 501c3 in the US also means that the company is tax exempt, which is the actual concrete thing I was implicitly asking about.
For one, I'm worried about what simple means. Likely something that will not make it as cheap to operate in every EU country, but make it as expensive to do that.
Also, whatever the EU commission/council/whatever they call themselves in order to not call themselves government decides has to be translated into local legislation by all member countries. So it will get twisted in 27 different ways, some of them incompatible. Also 9 of the 27 will take years to finish the process.
I mean, if that's the case, no-one will use that structure.
In general, having a single set of rules makes things cheaper. That is the whole basis of standardisation.
> Also 9 of the 27 will take years to finish the process.
You're thinking of directives. I'd assume this will be a regulation (quick guide to the differences here: https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/law... )
They're trying so hard to not call themselves a government that they renamed everything so it doesn't sound like what a government does. Maybe they should start with fixing that...
For the record i am in the EU and I think the EU is generally a good thing. Doesn't mean the "commisioners/ministers/whatever" couldn't use a few kicks to bring them more down to earth.
Local taxes & employment
I guess there is hardly any incentive to open a company in, say, Sweden vs Ireland then?
It seems somehow untrustworthy this >Our entrepreneurs, the innovative companies, will be able to register a company in any Member State within 48 hours – fully online.
which sounds like not everyone will be allowed to do this? or is it "our" like European is our.
US tech companies won not because EU is diverse, but because they had access to more money and could undermine all competition by dumping prices.
Even before Google, there was Microsoft and it's tacit acceptance of "piracy".
I feel like it's important to specify "diversity" and not just use it as a catch-all. I don't believe the strength of the EU is in diversity of how companies are implemented and run across the union, it's the diversity of culture, mindset and people that is the strength, and that can be represented inside companies, even if the way of setting up, running and investing in companies would be the same across the union.
I hope this is an indication that the Commission proposal will be for a Regulation and not a Directive.
I still don't understand why it's been such a contentious decision to pick between the two.
jcmartinezdev•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
kleiba•1h ago
Hahaha, good one, little padavan...
jcmartinezdev•1h ago
jcmartinezdev•1h ago
noosphr•1h ago
People outside of Germany really have no idea how sclerotic the state is. Mean while Germans suffer from the brain damage of having lived there their whole lives and don't see a problem with this.
If you think brain damage is too strong a word, the last time I brought it up a bunch of Germans came out of the wood work to defend an 8 week process as completely reasonable. Then when told I could do the same thing in Australia in 15 minutes they insinuated I was probably a criminal for wanting less paper work to open a business there.
RandomLensman•1h ago
jcmartinezdev•1h ago
lm28469•1h ago
You can bill as soon as you started the process afaik
noosphr•1h ago
I may be misremembering the exact steps because I tried drilling all those memories out of my head as soon as I left Germany.
defo10•38m ago
47282847•1h ago
Frankly, I understand how one can be annoyed at certain requirements but how do people imagine it without those? I can totally accept temporary annoyances since ultimately all of it serves to protect me from harm as a customer. I really don’t want to deal with companies whose founders already find the quite straightforward registration procedure too difficult.
The claim by others in this thread that you have to wait for the registration entry is false, your company is created the moment you pass notarization. While it makes proof of existence easier to be in the database, you can act and get bank accounts etc with those documents already. And I doubt the stability of your business idea if you cannot even wait a bit.
westpfelia•1h ago
lnsru•1h ago
jcmartinezdev•1h ago
Any changes you need to make, adding more capital, change address, requires again, paperwork, tons of hours and again the notary.
Taxes are also quite difficult to figure out, I'm not German born, and my German is good for conversation, but to read and understand the tax has been a problem and I had to rely on very expensive tax consultants. (I know, this is my problem, not a german problem)
It's not that is hard, it's very time consuming, manual, and involves a lot of paperwork. Other countries do this much easier. Also, shutting down a company... I'm still trying to figure that out :(
traceroute66•1h ago
It would have been significantly quicker if you used a well-connected law firm.
I know a number of friends of friends in Germany who have all visited the lawyer, the notary and the bank all in the course of one morning. The whole experience was orchestrated by the lawyer because they knew the notary and the bank manager. In some cases the lawyer even drove them around between locations. ;)
The Steuerberater then took care of the Finanzamt.
Of course this entails extra professional fees. But the point is that there are many examples out there showing it can be done in less than 8 weeks.
jcmartinezdev•49m ago
It’s crazy expensive, because of all the bureaucracy. The UG is supposed to be quick and easy to set up, requiring minimum capital… but the process proves expensive.
lnsru•57m ago
I agree, the process is not easy or nice in Germany, but it’s enough to start businesses despite all the complications and overregulation. But getting VAT number and bank account in other comments mentioned Estonia was huge pita for friends.
jcmartinezdev•47m ago
Lesson learned I guess!
mfld•43m ago
Also taxes will be much easier. Just get one of the countless apps where you add invoices, and they generate tax reports for you. With an LLC or when employing other people, getting a tax consultant is advised. IMO, they are not expensive - how many hours of your time are you willing to spend on this topic instead of paying e.g. 200 EUR/mo?
jcmartinezdev•35m ago
I’m nearly at 3.5k/year and I have barely 10 invoices a month that I need to process between incoming and outgoing lol
mfld•10m ago
lbreakjai•58m ago
It might have changed, but a few years ago you could go from 0 to a fully functional limited company, with accounting, business account, registered address with mail forwarding, etc. in a matter of days, from the comfort of your sofa.
everfrustrated•27m ago
Possibly closer to the US Inc?
traceroute66•1h ago
To be fair, I think the problem operating in Germany is its federated nature. And so you have similar issues to companies operating in other federated jurisdictions e.g. US.
If you look at the UK (through pre-Brexit eyes, of course) or Ireland, establishing and operating companies is significantly easier.
simon_a99•1h ago
https://www.bnotk.de/en/tasks-and-activities/magazines/bnotk...
causalscience•1h ago