And all done as a grass roots effort from a few dedicated and motivated folks like Andreas Klinger.
We'll need a bunch of steps like that, to get closer to the efficiencies we're hoping for.
Noice!
(I'm of course spitballing ;)
Holy crap.
> People with German GmbH are essentially unable to move anywhere.
Well, that's not entirely true, but I can see how it might complicate things considerably.
Apart from that: How is that de-facto locking in of individuals compatible with the EU‘s foundational freedom of movement?
This is only because the drafters of the US constitution didn’t think to list corporations law as an enumerated power of Congress - I don’t think they omitted it out of an ideological conviction, simply because nobody thought of it at the time. That said, given SCOTUS’ expansive reading of the interstate commerce clause, there’s a decent chance SCOTUS would let them get away with a federal corporations law, but they’ve never had the political will to attempt a general federal incorporation law
The drafters of the Australian constitution did list corporations law as a power of the federal government-but they were working over a century later, and they studied the US system intently to try to identify what worked and what mistakes to avoid. However, it took until 1989 for a federal corporations law to be enacted, and then the High Court ruled in 1990 that the new federal corporations law was unconstitutional, because the corporations power in the constitution only authorised federal regulation of existing domestic corporations, not the act of incorporating them - however, this was fixed by a federal-state agreement voluntarily ceding corporations law power to the Commonwealth (this is another innovation the Australian constitution has compared to the US - the ability of the federal level to gain new enumerated powers without constitutional amendment, by the states voluntarily agreeing to cede them)
Anyway, I don't know about the exact wiring of this but an alternative can be to create a virtual country with its own law, sign a trade agreement with the country to give it full access to the EU market and even some special rights and achieve the same effect of getting rid of the regulations and bureaucracy. These arrangements can be very interesting, like the City of London which is like a country inside London that is actually a corporation. Very weird things are possible.
If it wants to stay in the EU it has to adhere to the bloc rules. It is not forced to stay in the EU (and, in fact, getting rid of Orban would not be such a bad idea). Hungexit when?
What are you supposed to do when the bloc rules imposed upon you now, are not the ones that were agreed upon when you joined? Imagine your landlord or employer changes your contract without your consent and just tells you to walk if you don't like it. It wouldn't be legal anyway, but it would also be a dick move. I'm old enough to see how the EU of today is not the same it was just 20 years ago.
@dosinga False. All those examples you gave, require bilateral agreement to be legal. At least in Europe. You can't unilaterally change a contract for both parties.
Those rules are not conjured from thin air. They are proposed either by EU commission or EU council, and the national governments have direct participation on both, including veto powers.
And ultimately, a country can article 50 if the rules are unacceptable.
> Imagine your landlord or employer changes your contract without your consent and just tells you to walk if you don't like it.
Depending on the country where you live there are regulations, but employers in particular do that all the time.
> I'm old enough to see how the EU of today is not the same it was just 20 years ago.
Age presumably brings wisdom. Not always.
Very quick way to show you are not willing to engage in ideas in good faith.
And Poland and Italy and the Netherlands and Luxembourg etc. are all free to voice their opinion as being members of the club.
The EU is walking on thin ice: it doesn't exist since very long (at least not in that form) and the EUR is a very young currency that is already in serious trouble, with most members of the eurozone deeply indebted (and one that already partially defaulted on its public debt, Greece).
The hubris of people who think the EU can bully every single country into submission is insane. Many people aren't happy at all with what's going on in the EU. The EU screwed big times on nuclear (and recently acknowledged they fucked up on nuclear), became dependent on Russia for cheap energy (the US warned them this had potential to SNAFU and SNAFU it did) and now has one of the highest energy price in the world. Making it extremely hard for EU industries to compete with the rest of the world.
There are also many people in the EU who believe that massively importing people from Africa and poor middle-eastern countries (I'm not saying all middle eastern countries are poor: I'm saying middle-eastern countries migration into the EU is mostly from poor middle-eastern countries) won't raise the living standard of the EU.
The entire "we decide which size cucumbers should have, we decide to break encryption to protect the kids, we decide to flood the continent with migrants, etc. and you STFU or you can get out" is not an acceptable posture.
Also please let me laugh at the Schengen borders area: we saw how quickly those borders were closed during several occasion, including Covid. But lastly there have been police controls filtrating cars at the borders in Germany: got controlled twice last summer in Germany. So much for the free movement of people.
My bet is the EUR is going to die a quick death (one of the most stupid currency every invented: cannot work with different fiscal laws and different productivity in the various eurozone countries). And my second bet is that this is going to put a lot of pressure on the entire EU thing.
The EU is not doing well. The US and China's GDPs grew like crazy since the 2008 financial crisis while inflation-adjusted the EU barely moved.
At some point people should do well to wonder if the EU construct ain't the root cause of the problem.
In my experience, one concrete problem is that so many people misunderstand or are unaware of basic things about the EU and why EU even exists. With the former I mean things like how the EU Parliament is put together, the relation of the EU Commission to the EU Parliament, how is the President of the EU Commission chosen (no, it's not "undemocratic"), what does Schengen mean, what is the Euro and WHY does it exist, why was there legislation which mentioned the curvature of cucumbers, and so on.
As there is no big picture, or it is rejected due to ideological reasons, the lack of knowledge and misunderstandings then manifest as fear of the unknown (=the EU). At this point, these people become against everything in EU: whatever new things are proposed from the EU side, it is somehow "lousy", "bad", "failing", "won't work anyway", and so forth. Any EU company has "bottom-barrel products" and "can't succeed", euro cannot work between countries, Europe is "weak" and "gay" and "collapsing".
Also, some people look at an individual member state and confuse it with the whole EU. For example, the nuclear power stance of Germany is seen as an EU-mandated position and then the whole EU is seen to be against nuclear power. This can also work in reverse: Poland sends generators to Ukraine, well done Poland and why is the weak and failing EU doing nothing (except the generators were from RescEU stores, and one such store was located in Poland, so EU was sending them).
When people understand what the EU is and know the basics, of course they might still disagree with things, that's normal, but at least the arguments are more factual.
That's where you're wrong. Where would German industry be today without the labor, suppliers, export market and cheap energy imports from the other non-EU-6 members? Especially after they denuclearized and derussified their energy sector and nuked their birthrates, and so rely on importing energy and workers from everyone to stay afloat. You can't claim you don't need them while you're importing their energy, labor, resources, doctors, etc. You can't treat your country like an economic zone, while ignoring all the economic transactions.
I'm not saying that Germany (or other EU-6) doesn't need immigration. I'm an immigrant in Germany and I do support it for qualified and even non-qualified jobs. However, it is not a clear cut benefit to be in a union with emigrant source countries either.
The current setup of EU is a toxic relationship for both sides though, it is a benevolent colonization setup. Allowing smaller post-Soviet countries without significantly investing and improving their economies and industries and their political stability before ascension, ended up very badly for the other ones. EU-6 siphoned out all the labor, younger population and educated classes of post-Soviet countries, so now their populations are mostly old, resented people, the biggest businesses owned by EU-6 for only cheap labor. Those populations are really susceptible to authoritarian overtakes and the authoritarian governments like Hungary and Slovakia of today and Poland of past can block significant decisions with the veto right.
EU is very beneficial for smaller countries however at a significant cost for both sides in a bad way. It worked best when the candidate / new member nation was already a significantly developed and industrialized part of Soviet Union like Baltics or Poland (for the most part, they are not 100% clear yet).
I'm talking about the state of the German economy of today, how it's deeply tied to non-Eu-6 countries in a big way. Their past economic success of a lone wolf, is irrelevant today when they're struggling. Different times. China wasn't even on the radar as a competitor back then and German cars were all the rave worldwide back then. Times have changed.
> Its immigration policy was targetted and more selective even.
So why doesn't it want to be as selective anymore today? You know, like back their economic boom days you mentioned before.
>They truly do not need to be in a union with the less developed countries to get those benefits.
Then what's the point of the EU if they can get everything they need without a union? Why doesn't Germany and France just leave the EU and take their money with them?
Because you only focus on the argument of the German EU integration being all about importing cheap labor with your argument, but my argument is beyond that. For example, countless suppliers to Germany economy are in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, etc. And such trade and IP collaboration NEEDS an union. Same for defence parts for French companies that are now made in post-communist countries.
>The current setup of EU is a toxic relationship for both sides though, it is a benevolent colonization setup.
It wasn't always like that though. Only in the last 10 or so years did the EU start to be authoritarian towards member states.
>EU-6 siphoned out all the labor, younger population and educated classes of post-Soviet countries
True, but guess what, for the first time ever, more post-Communist EU migrants are now leaving Germany and returning home, than the number migrating to Germany from post-Communist members. Reasons are many, but it seems like the days of Germany (and others) being the lands of milk and honey are over.
>Those populations are really susceptible to authoritarian overtakes
And German population ISN'T?! They just prefer a different flavor of authoritarianism, one with nicer PR, where the jackboots are eco friendly, as they take you to court for "hateful" Tweets, stuff that doesn't happen in the post-Communist states.
>authoritarian governments like Hungary and Slovakia of today and Poland
Why are they considered authoritarian? Because they do what their voters want and not what the EU wants?
>can block significant decisions with the veto right.
Good? Shouldn't nations be able to have a say themselves from EU decisions that might negatively impact them?
I didn't hear many people calling the Austrian regime autocratic for constantly vetoing Romania and Bulgaria's Schengen memberships, despite those countries having met the criterias long before.
So the "autocratic" label keeps being applied very inconsistently across the EU. Dare I say hypocritical.
It being “fought” or countries being “penalised” is a matter of opinion but not one I share.
Please, elaborate, I'll be waiting.
I bet not, because you don’t know their laws, and you don’t want to litigate in Croatian. You also don’t know the tax implications and chance is you will only find out when it’s too late.
So if an EU Inc happens, it needs to be based on a shared English law, otherwise it doesn’t change much
A good idea in theory
> legal framework provides faster (within 48 hours), cheaper (maximum EUR 100) and fully digital company registration, simplified procedures throughout the company life cycle
Did not expect this
.
If they deliver, this might actually make startups in europe a bit more common
Just in time for AI to make startups no longer possible for labor capital to undertake as financial capital alone (plus the hyperscalers) take the reigns.
Once there's a $1M Claude Code button to implement an entire business, it's over. Engineeers and business folks and the startup hustle are over.
I was hoping open source would save us, but it's not keeping pace with the leading edge of foundation models. Plus the hyperscalers own all of the infrastructure to run and scale anyhow. Piddly RTX cards are nothing in the face of this.
This is tech (and humanity's) final "embrace, extend, extinguish".
This is the last few years of startups.
> The objective is to enable innovative companies to operate under a single, harmonised set of EU-wide rules, covering relevant aspects of corporate, insolvency, labour and tax law.
Especially the last two topics are the nitty gritty details, subject to day-to-day populism by local politicians. It’s why „relevant aspects“ dampens my hopes.
Sometimes I wonder if we should just reduce the EU to a non-geographical sovereign state with which EU countries have a shared agreement. I‘d the incorporate within this state, have it taxed and regulated there. Sort of like a mixture of the City of London and the Holy See.
Corporate law is inherently somewhat bureaucratic; better simplify it and unify it if proven necessary.
What is needed is the arrest of the Commission for a coup d'état and high treason, with its powers being transferred to the European Parliament.
- It would discourage share buying.
- somebody with control packet can do terrible things, while minority stock owners have no impact. Blame attribution might be tricky.
- The one with the most control would get the biggest share of liability.
Blame attribution doesn't have to be precise. For example, if a police officer catches someone littering and it's a plastic Coke bottle, they would fine the person doing the littering, but also a small fine for Coca Cola for having made their bottle out of plastic... If the problem is significant enough, the CEO would be fined a large fine and lose their job along with any employees responsible for the design choice of using plastic. The shareholders would also get a fine (potentially taken out of their dividends).
Some panel of councilors in different towns can decide on the fines independently and fine any local branches that the company has.
It would open up opportunities for smaller companies which is good. Everyone is working constantly anyway; life would be better for most people if they could operate their own company.
Firstly, I question the efficiency of large companies in terms of delivering what people actually need. Secondly, I question the need for such efficiency to begin with; especially in a world where everyone is spending all of their time working bullshit jobs.
Wouldn't it be better if everyone could feel useful in their jobs? Even if it was less 'efficient' in aggregate? I'm pretty sure people would get more value in terms of what they actually need from such society.
We need to say no to diffuse harms and concentrated gains.