Europe has a single market of around 450 million consumers, yet starting and expanding a business across its borders remains surprisingly complicated. Entrepreneurs must navigate 27 national corporate legal systems and more than 60 different company forms, often involving different procedures, administrative requirements and costs.
This fragmentation has become part of the broader debate about European competitiveness. Reports by Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi have highlighted structural barriers that make it harder for European businesses to expand internationally, attract investment and compete with larger companies elsewhere.
The European Commission now wants to address part of this problem through EU Inc., a proposed common corporate framework introduced on 18 March 2026. On 23 October, the Council of the European Union adopted its negotiating position, moving the initiative further through the legislative process.
The objective is to make establishing, financing and growing a company across Europe considerably easier.
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Modern computers can perform extraordinary numbers of calculations. But before a processor can calculate, it needs information. That information must be retrieved from memory, transferred between components and often stored again.
What if moving information becomes a greater challenge than calculating with it?
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ESMC marked the topping-out of its Dresden factory on 14 September 2026 and is preparing for manufacturing equipment to arrive in 2027. The venture between TSMC, Bosch, Infineon and NXP expects total investment to exceed €10 billion. The task ahead is to turn the building into a dependable source of chips for industry.
For an industrial customer, the useful milestone is the delivery of chips it has approved for its products. Between the completed roof and that delivery lie trained teams, reliable production and orders. How much of that industrial system can Dresden put in place together?
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The EU Inc. proposal aims to simplify how businesses are established, financed and expanded across Europe. But can a common corporate framework overcome the legal fragmentation of the single market and strengthen European competitiveness?
Work, care and constant availability compete for the same limited time. As mental-health-related incapacity grows, six questions examine how Europe distributes pressure, protects recovery and allocates the costs when people can no longer cope.
Europe has more stories to tell. Through experimental writing, Altair Media explores the connections between culture, entrepreneurship, technology and capital — and introduces a new briefing for readers curious about the Europe taking shape around them.
Europe’s old pilgrimage routes preserve more than religious heritage. They offer another relationship with time. Through walking, hospitality and unexpected encounters, they reveal what modern societies risk losing when every journey — and even rest — must deliver measurable results.