European startup leaders urge lawmakers to maintain EU Inc corporate status

Europe could soon have its own equivalent of the Delaware C Corp, but its advocates aren’t releasing the pressure on lawmakers. In an open letter released on Thursday, a who’s who of Europe’s startup scene stressed that this new corporate status shouldn’t be watered down.

The letter is the latest step of the EU Inc campaign, a movement calling for an EU-wide company statute that would let companies incorporate under a common framework and operate across the bloc. Its promoters have secured endorsements from the European Union’s top authorities, but now are expressing concern that the final legislation could become “unusable if its central features are weakened.”

As usual with European lawmaking, various national lobbies have entered the chat, including Germany’s notaries, whose association has criticized aspects of the European Commission’s proposal. But negotiations are still ongoing for the European Parliament and Council to settle on a final text, and EU Inc’s promoters are pointing out what’s at stake.

With some 100 days left before European institutions shut down for winter recess, the letter calls on policymakers to preserve the proposal, saying it the potential to “remove much of the friction and fragmentation that continue to throttle European companies, unlock investment and spur a new wave of entrepreneurship.”

Taking a page from older lobbies, the letter highlights points that “may seem like technical details, but […] separate a company form founders use from one they ignore.” In particular, they insist on one central registry; and that employees should be taxed only when they actually dispose of their stock options.

This need to get into the weeds isn’t new. In 2024, when original petition was gaining steam, Index Ventures partner and EU Inc supporter Martin Mignot told TechCrunch that “the devil is in the details, and that’s going to be where we’re going to be very, very watchful.”

EU Inc has also stepped up its namedropping game. On the investor side, EU Inc’s new letter has been signed by VCs including Accel partner Sonali De Rycker, Sequoia partner Michael Moritz, and Atomico founder Niklas Zennström — one of many tech figures who’s been supporting the campaign by sporting its cap.

To add gravitas on the entrepreneur side, promoters also highlighted endorsements from founders behind unicorns including Alan, ElevenLabs, Lovable, Mistral, and Synthesia. Some of these have their HQs in the United States; reading between the lines, the message to lawmakers is also that if EU Inc has its way, this could be a thing of the past.