EU Inc aims to slash red tape and boost growth

The European Commission’s proposal on long-standing concept the 28th Regime, known as ‘EU Inc’, will be presented in April, former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has said.

Letta, whose influential 2024 report emphasised implementation of  the long-mooted regime, was speaking in DCU at the launch of the Jean Monnet COMPETE centre of excellence research initiative (16 February).

COMPETE (Competitiveness, Opportunity and Money: Promoting the Economic Transformation of the EU) is co-ordinated by Dublin European Law Institute and funded by a €100,000 grant from the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme.

The centre is led by Dr Federico Fabbrini and brings together DELI’s expertise in EU law, politics, and economics.

Its purpose is to examine how the EU’s regulatory, fiscal, and financial frameworks shape competitiveness and economic transformation. 

Dr Ian Cooper (senior research fellow at DELI and  Brexit Institute) said COMPETE was based solely at DCU and would study how regulation, public finance, and private investment affected EU competitiveness. 

Part of the remit is to share its findings with EU institutions.

Dr John Quinn, whose research focuses on company-law theory and European company law, laid out how the 28th Regime might work.

A properly designed 28th regime must eliminate duplication, reduce red tape, and create a genuine EU-level business environment, he said.

It must function as a complete regulatory infrastructure, not merely another optional corporate form, he added. 

The DCU Assistant Professor of European Company Law said that European competitiveness depended on making it easier for companies to scale, operate cross-border, and reduce costs.

Innovation 

“This will not only help the European economy by boosting employment and innovation and solving problems that we face, but also help the European Union gain strategic autonomy in key sectors … like telecoms or technology,” he said.

The author of The Societal Company: Sustainability, Shareholder Value, and European Company Law explained that while national systems worked, EU-level integration did not.

At national level, firms have legal personality, limited liability, property rights, and court access.

At EU level, however, businesses face 27 different legal systems, registers, and regulators.

This fragmentation increased costs and regulatory duplication, he explained.

In the United States, states compete to attract companies, with Delaware emerging as the dominant incorporation location.

The EU “rightly” rejected this model and instead attempted to harmonise company law, the event heard.

Stalled

That process succeeded only partially and stalled on politically sensitive issues such as employee representation and corporate group regulation.

The 28th Regime aims to overcome these issues by creating an EU-level corporate framework.

In what Quinn described as a very exciting idea for company lawyers, instead of one member state becoming a ‘Delaware’, the EU itself “would create a company-law code or some kind of specific regulatory system for EU-specific businesses.”

Dr Quinn warned that as earlier initiatives, including the 2001 Societas Europaea and proposed European private-company models failed to gain traction, a new regime must be more ambitious and offer a clearer value proposition. 

Arguing that a new legal form was not enough, the lawyer proposed three essential architectural components for the 28th regime: 

• A single EU-level digital company register,
• An EU-recognised digital identity valid across all 27 member states,
• A fast and reliable dispute-resolution mechanism, potentially a European commercial court.

Value

These would, he said, create “a real value proposition for small companies and start-up companies” by solving the problems faced by businesses, of red tape and duplication of regulation.

Such an EU framework would solve core cross-border issues such as registration and recognition.

Technical matters – such as directors’ duties, insolvency, or employment law – would likely default back to national systems as a full EU company code would be impractical.

Barrister Dr Niall Moran, a specialist in EU and international trade law, said his research would focus on how EU trade and competition law could help and protect EU firms compete globally. 

He will be looking specifically at:

• Free-trade agreements,
• How to strengthen EU supply chains,
• Broader shift in EU policy from pure free trade toward economic security, and
• Competitiveness, and new EU instruments that “level the playing field”.

These instruments include such measures as: 

• The Foreign Subsidies Regulation,
• The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and
• Modernised trade defence tools.

Dr Christy Ann Petit (assistant professor at DCU School of Law and Government) is a specialist in the intersection of EU law, banking and financial regulation, and economic governance.

She described three main urgent matters in banking and finance.

First, the proposed market integration package, which would centralise more financial supervision at EU level, particularly by strengthening the role of bodies such as the European Securities and Markets Authority – a politically sensitive reform facing resistance from some member states.

Second, improving financial literacy, since the EU’s Savings and Investment Union can only succeed if citizens understand financial products and markets.

Third, ensuring better access to high-quality financial data, including shared databases to support effective supervision, policymaking, and academic research.