Many activists and lobbyists had called for a European company register as part of EU Inc. Today’s EU legislative proposal has indeed included one.

Today saw the official launch of the EU Inc or ‘28th Regime’ legislative proposal by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, after it got its first outing at Davos in January. It includes the much requested European company register, despite earlier indications that this would be unwieldy and not be part of the proposal.

“It can still take weeks or even months to set up a company or to start doing business in another country within the single market,” von der Leyen said this morning in Brussels.

“Barriers inside Europe hurt us more than tariffs from the outside. Across our union, entrepreneurs who want to scale up are the first victims of regulatory fragmentation. Instead of one market, they face 27 legal systems and more than 60 national company forms. And the consequences are real.”

“The time and money spent filling paperwork is not spent on creating or innovating,” she said. “Obviously, this must change and fast. And so here comes EU Inc, the 28th regime.”

The EU Inc movement had gathered steam since its launch back in 2024, and the announcement from von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos was widely celebrated as progress. The initiative launched today includes many of the elements for which the start-up community lobbied hard.

What’s included?

The 48-hour incorporation benchmark – the Holy Grail for many in the European start-up sector – is there, as had been anticipated given it was included in von der Leyen’s Davos speech. Less expected was the confirmation that the proposal includes the EU Business registry for EU Inc companies.

“EU Inc creates a single European company framework,” said von der Leyen. “It is one simple set of rules that works across our entire single market of 450m consumers. It will make it drastically easier to start and to grow a business in Europe. Any entrepreneur will be able to create a company within 48 hours from anywhere in the European Union, fully digitalised for less than €100 and without minimum share capital.

“At the heart of this proposal is one simple principle that says, ‘once only’. Companies will provide their information to public authority, the data one time only, and that information will then be shared automatically between relevant administrations, from business registers to taxes to social security … and this information will be stored and easily accessible in a new EU Business register for EU Inc companies.”

A third element of EU Inc will be around talent, she said.

“Now, with EU Inc, employee stock options will be simpler to offer and easier to manage across borders, so it will help you in companies to compete for the best people, and founders will be able to protect companies and employees from unwanted takeovers,” said von der Leyen.

Finally, she addressed the much-discussed ‘risk factor’. Many in the community had pointed to the lack of a risk culture in Europe, where failure was not recognised as a necessary part of any true start-up ecosystem.

“In business, failure should not be the end of the road,” said von der Leyen. “It should be part of the journey. With EU Inc, we want to reward entrepreneurship and make it less risky, and this is why we will fully digitalise insolvency procedures and introduce a fast-track insolvency process for start-ups so that entrepreneurs can start again more easily.”

She also addressed the concerns of labour activists and trade unions around EU Inc.

“Let me be very clear on one important point. The EU Inc proposal will in every way respect existing social standards and labour law, and this includes all employees’ rights to participate in companies’ boards. This proposal includes strong safeguards to ensure that such rules are applied.”

Boosting EU start-ups and scale-ups

EU-INC, a movement with more than 22,000 signatories including the founders of Stripe and venture capital players from Sequioa to Index, had been running a policy campaign since October 2024 pushing for the creation of the so-called 28th regime, and in 2025 presented legal proposals to the Commission.

DC Cahalane is a venture partner at Sure Valley Ventures. In a SiliconRepublic.com op-ed in September last year, he described EU Inc as “Europe’s greatest opportunity to build a unified tech ecosystem that can compete globally”.

Simon Paris is CEO of Unit4, an Utrecht-headquartered enterprise software company. He told SiliconRepublic.com he is very positive about the potential for Europe to create European software champions, and that he sees EU Inc as a positive step in the right direction.

“Some are saying we are better off focusing efforts elsewhere, as we’re too far behind the US and China,” he said. “I disagree. I would remind critics of Europe’s decision to build Airbus in response to the need for an alternative to Boeing. A collective decision was made to define this as a strategic priority for the region, despite all the risks it entailed. As the Airbus example shows, we have been here before, and we made it happen.”

Capital challenge

Availability of capital remains a major challenge for European scale-ups in comparison to their US and Chinese counterparts, and von der Leyen did address this briefly, saying there are plans afoot to tackle the issue.

“This is only the beginning. We will make it easier for venture capital to flow to businesses,” she said. “This will be done by the savings and investment union. We will explore new possibilities for cross-border telework, for start-ups and scale-ups. And today, we also adopted a recommendation to harmonise the definition of innovative start-ups and scale-ups across Europe so that we can design better policies to help our businesses to grow and to thrive in Europe.”

At a later press conference, Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president of the European Commission, said the intention was to have the EU Inc regime in place by the end of 2026.

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