On March 18, the European Commission unveiled EU Inc., a corporate framework allowing entrepreneurs to register a company operable across all 27 Member States in 48 hours, for under €100, with no minimum share capital.
The proposal aims to tackle a long-standing barrier for SMEs: fragmentation. Today, businesses expanding across borders must navigate 27 legal systems and dozens of company forms, an obstacle that increases costs, delays growth, and discourages scaling. In some cases, it even pushes European startups to relocate abroad, often to the United States, in search of a more streamlined framework.
EU Inc. represents a promising step forward. Its use of a regulation (ensuring uniform application across the EU), the removal of minimum capital requirements, and simplified procedures for startups all signal a strong commitment to improving the business environment for SMEs.
However, while the initiative addresses corporate law complexity, it leaves many of the most pressing challenges untouched, such as taxation, labour law, and regulatory compliance. For many SMEs, these remain the real barriers to cross-border growth.
So, is EU Inc. a breakthrough or simply an additional layer in an already complex system?
Read the full analysis on the INSME blog to explore what this proposal really means for SMEs across Europe.
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