EU Inc stalls in Parliament over workers' rights

The EU's flagship plan for a single European company form has stalled in the European Parliament over — of all things — workers' rights. Two Legal Affairs Committee votes were cancelled in October after political groups failed to agree on board-level employee participation rules.

The plan, known as EU Inc., was proposed by the European Commission on 18 March as an optional company form existing alongside the 27 national systems. It promises digital registration within 48 hours, costs of up to €100, no minimum share capital, and companies following the employee-participation rules of whichever country they register in. Trade unions and centre-left MEPs fear firms will simply shop for the weakest board-level protections. Business-friendly lawmakers counter that applying multiple national systems would complicate the plan to death.

The standoff has drawn in an unusual coalition. The EU-INC campaign counts more than 26,000 supporters, including figures linked to Stripe, Mistral AI, Klarna and Wise — founders who want a European Delaware, a single incorporation that works across the single market the way a US LLC works across 50 states. Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné has acknowledged the regime cannot function without harmonisation of stock options, the currency in which start-ups actually pay early employees.

The underlying tension is structural. The United States offers founders speed and uniformity because its 50 states compete on corporate law while deferring to whichever state a company picks. Europe's 27 member states each carry their own labor protections, and any pan-European form must either override them or absorb all of them at once. A new committee vote is pencilled in for 5 November, with a first plenary vote provisionally set for 12 November.

Until then, a registration that takes 48 hours in the proposal remains a proposal, while the founders it was written for continue registering in Delaware.