I think you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
Most of the EU corpus of law is based on culturally acceptable actions from their members.
The EU regulations don't strangle, the EU culture is just different.
Innovation for the sake of innovation and the pursuit of money isn't deeply entrenched in European culture.
So yes, innovation based on "go fast and don't care if you break stuff" comes mainly from outside of EU.
I mean, they're not entirely wrong, but it's actually the lack of a capital markets union that causes the issues here.
So in fact, this is a case where the answer is more EU (specifically, a better set of cross-country capital markets). Depressingly, the obvious place to build this is no longer in the EU.
They're wrong in everything but a meaningless "well technically" sense. People spouting "EU regulations strangle business" nonsense are never talking about the lack of capital markets union. Let alone in a thread about "iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA".
> So in fact, this is a case where the answer is more EU (specifically, a better set of cross-country capital markets).
Can you give me a set of non-EU countries with better cross-country capital markets, that are as such now instead the place to build this? Especially for a set size bigger than 3? Serious question, as I've never heard of one and am fairly sure it doesn't exist, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
> Can you give me a set of non-EU countries with better cross-country capital markets, that are as such now instead the place to build this? Especially for a set size bigger than 3? Serious question, as I've never heard of one and am fairly sure it doesn't exist, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
This does not exist, however the EU single market is also pretty unique in terms of how many countries are involved. If you include the EEA and the customs union, it's definitely the largest.
Given that there's an obvious currency union, the capital markets thing is relatively plausible (difficult but not impossible), and I personally think it would be great.
Note that I am biased, as I live in a small EU country and our financial and insurance providers are both expensive and terrible. And obviously the EU tech industry would benefit, which would also help me.
I think the real reason this hasn't happened is hangover from the EZ crisis, as sharing risk for banks across nations was toxic in many countries as a result of the financial and EZ crises. But now seems like a good time to at least start it.
As I said above, the biggest problem here would be where to put it, and the UK's absence from the EU makes the obvious place politically a non-runner (unfortunately).
If it does not exist, it is not a disadvantage compared to anywhere else. In a sense it's an advantage, as despite the barriers, the capital markets of two EU countries (especially if they use the Euro) are still a lot more integrated than if you'd pick two random non-EU countries. The disadvantages of being from a small EU country would apply the exact same way but even worse if you were from a small non-EU country.
Digital regulation is not a serious blocker, as any EU founder can tell you. Per above, neither are cross-country capital markets a disadvantage of the EU compared to the non-EU world. Then what is the disadvantage? Do Japanese startups have it any better? Korean? Kenyan? Serbian? Mexican? Taiwanese? Malaysian? Singaporean? Do those startups benefit from "less regulations" or from cross-country capital markets? Of course they don't, yet I've never seen a single person in my life mention those countries' regulations or lack of cross-country capital markets. Because they don't have an advantage in those areas, showing that the EU indeed doesn't actually cause any disadvantages in them.
> Because they don't have an advantage in those areas, showing that the EU indeed doesn't actually cause any disadvantages in them.
Lots to unpack here.
So the issue is size of capital markets (for startup and IPO purposes). 27 small markets are much, much less liquid than one large one (like China or the US). Therefore, it's easier for European founders to raise US capital, which often leads to them incorporating or floating in the US. Like, Flutter (which is an Irish company) is on the US markets for exactly this reason, as are a bunch of other large Irish companies.
It would be better for the EU if these companies incorporated in the EU, for which one large capital market would work better.
And it's not that EU companies are disadvantaged vs Singaporean companies, it's that they are disadvantaged relative to US companies.
> are still a lot more integrated than if you'd pick two random non-EU countries.
I guess my point is that they're not integrated enough.
Right, I'm not talking about capital markets, just regulations. Overall tech doesn't thrive in the EU. Their attitude probably predates EU founding too. And I'm not just saying that because of this relatively small AirPods situation (where I actually agree with EU).
Tech "not thriving" in the EU - by what standards, what does this mean? - has zero to do with EU regulations, or we'd see tech thrive much more in Japan, Korea, Kenya, Serbia, Mexico, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, all those non-EU countries with supposedly less regulations and as such more thriving tech. Before you point to the chip companies that some of those countries have, those already existed 30+ years ago and aren't an example of tech "thriving" due to less regulations, it would be like pointing at ASML and Airbus to prove that in the EU it is thriving.
