France Digitale partners with EU-Inc to publish its new blueprint

EU-Inc, an initiative to create a unified company structure for startups across Europe under a ‘28th Regime’*, is today calling for its immediate inclusion in the European Commission 2025 Work Programme. With over 13,000 signatures from Europe’s most prominent tech leaders, VCs, and political figures, EU-Inc demonstrates a clear consensus for immediate change.

To help drive the change forward, the grassroots movement today publishes an industry blueprint for the ‘EU-Inc’ entity. This document builds on prior documentations, including the recently published non-paper from France Digitale, and discussions with the startup community and with policymakers across the continent. EU-Inc invites wider community input over the coming weeks, ahead of distribution of the final policy proposals to the European Commission in January 2025.

EU-Inc welcomes recent acknowledgements of the issues highlighted by the petition at the highest level of the European Union, with commitments to introduce proposals in 2025:

• Ursula Von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission, included the 28th regime for innovative companies in the Political Guidelines for the Commission, and last month added: « A startup from California can expand and raise money all across the United States. But our companies still face way too many national barriers that make it hard to work Europe-wide with way too much regulatory burden.”

• Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research, and Innovation, said she will propose a framework for the 28th regime in 2025, “to help innovative companies grow and benefit from a simpler, harmonised set of rules throughout the Union.”
• Michael McGrath, Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law commented: As a flagship initiative, I will prepare a specific proposal on an EU-wide company legal status – a 28th regime – with a view to helping innovative companies grow.

The blueprint outlines how the new European Commission can unlock Europe’s potential as a startup powerhouse, introducing:

• Standardized company structure: EU-wide company type with harmonized corporate governance, capital and share capital maintenance rules
• Digital-first approach: Fully digital registry, dashboard, and standardized investment documents
• EU-FAST investment: A new, standard, open source investment instrument inspired by convertible instruments such as SAFEs and BSA AIRs
• EU-ESOP: EU-wide employee share option scheme with standardised rules

These pan-European standardisations are critical to help European startups scale, attract talent and capital, and succeed on the global stage. Engagements with the startup community have shown there is a broad consensus on the way forward.

“The European startup ecosystem is fragmented in national silos, competing globally isolated from each other,” said Andreas Klinger, Co-Initiator of EU-Inc. “If we don’t act now, Europe risks falling further behind. We urge policymakers in EU Member States, and those in Brussels, to act with urgency and begin work on legislative proposals immediately.”

« Faced with foreign competition abroad, European startups can not even rely on a favorable domestic market to grow in. The European landscape is too fragmented, with national barriers, high administrative burden and siloed national investment sources. Alongside the EU Inc team, France Digitale puts forward proposals for the 28th regime announced by the European Commission, to create a thriving and frictionless European market to grow our most promising scale-ups. » added Antoine Latran, European affairs coordinator at France Digitale.

Enact change now to unlock Europe’s innovation potential

A critical issue underpinning EU-Inc is the loss of Europe’s top tech talent to regions such as the United States, where startups benefit from continent wide investments, fewer barriers to scaling and more competitive compensation packages through stock option grants. By reducing regulatory fragmentation and simplifying operational challenges, Europe can offer conditions that encourage innovators, entrepreneurs, and employees to remain within the continent. Incentivising startup growth in Europe is not about creating tax levies, instead it’s about fostering local innovation and talent that inevitably drives long-term economic growth across Europe and allows this continent to compete globally.

Call-to-action: Community feedback on the proposal for EU-Inc entity

To support the final push for implementation, EU-Inc is calling on the wider startup community to actively engage and provide feedback on the ‘EU-Inc’ proposal, before its formal submission to policymakers by January 2025.

*The 28th Regime is a recommendation for legal frameworks of European Union rules which do not replace member states’ own national rules but are an optional alternative to them.