The world economy has been shaken again and the outlook is not encouraging. The dragging out of the conflict in the Middle East could cause an energy crisis more severe than those of 1973 and 1979, leading to a global recession.
It is in this adverse scenario that the EU must continue its strategy to strengthen competitiveness, inspired by the Draghi Report. Now, one of the principles of this strategy is regulatory simplification, in order to enhance the single market. To give you an idea, the fragmentation of the single market represents a loss of around R$500 billion in additional GDP per year. Non-tariff barriers between Member States are equivalent to tariffs of around 44% for goods and 110% for services.
But there is good news. The European Commission has proposed a new business statute that allows opening, transferring or expanding SMEs in all Member States in a simpler, faster and cheaper way. The so-called 28th Regime, or “EU Inc.”, facilitates investment and the growth and internationalization of companies, which no longer need to face the 27 legal systems and more than 60 types of commercial companies existing in the EU. It will be possible to create a company in just 48 hours, from any Member State and completely digitally.
It is important, however, to continue working to improve the business environment in the EU, moving forward in simplifying the regulatory context. The bureaucratic tangle in which the European project has become entangled is a serious obstacle to the functioning, competitiveness and success of companies.
Business activity in the EU needs to be encouraged and strengthened with a more solid, stable, simple and reliable regulatory framework. The rules of commercial companies must be clear and homogeneous across Europe, in order to convey confidence to both investors and businesspeople.
Competitiveness cannot be Europe’s Sisyphean stone, which insists on rolling down the mountain with each new geopolitical shock, such as the reckless war against Iran. A new economic crisis that galvanizes populist movements, especially in France and Germany, will probably mean the death of the European project or, at the very least, its reconfiguration according to values foreign to Europe’s Enlightenment tradition.
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