EU Inc: The 28th Company Regime That Could Reshape How European Startups Scale

The European Commission’s proposed 28th company-law regime, informally known as EU Inc, has become a focal point of the bloc’s competitiveness agenda. The initiative would create a single pan-European legal form for businesses, existing alongside the 27 national company laws, with the aim of letting startups scale across the single market without setting up separate subsidiaries in each country.

What EU Inc would do

Under the proposal, companies could be incorporated digitally through a central EU platform, follow a harmonised tax framework, and apply common worker and consumer standards drawn from existing EU directives. The Commission argues that fragmented company law remains one of the biggest brakes on European scale-ups, adding substantial cost and complexity to cross-border expansion.

The Draghi context

EU Inc is part of the wider economic reorientation that followed the Draghi report of September 2024, which identified fragmented capital and corporate markets as among the largest obstacles to European competitiveness. Several recommendations, from the capital markets union to simplification of the state-aid framework, are being pursued in parallel, with mixed progress after eighteen months: simplification is advancing, the capital markets union is lagging, and consolidation remains politically sensitive.

Industry support, union concern

Industry federations, including BusinessEurope and national bodies, back rapid adoption, pointing to the cost of today’s legal fragmentation for scaling firms. Trade unions, led at European level by the ETUC, have urged caution, warning that a parallel legal form could become a vehicle to bypass national worker-protection and co-determination rules. The tension between scaling ambition and the European social model defines the debate.

The road ahead

The file feeds into the broader competitiveness discussions running toward the 23-24 June European Council, where heads of government will weigh industrial policy alongside enlargement and the next multiannual budget. For Europe’s small and mid-sized companies, the practical question is whether EU Inc lowers barriers without creating a two-tier system that disadvantages firms remaining under national law.