My Dear German friends, please accept that EU-inc is a massive boost for EU competitiveness. Continuing to block progress here only proves that the EU is good at making promises on paper but fails to deliver real change.

The reason this "28th regime" actually works—and bypasses the previous vetos — is that it’s optional. It doesn’t try to force Germany to change its local GmbH laws or kill the notary system overnight. Instead, it creates a parallel, voluntary path. Berlin doesn't have to give up its red tape for local shops, but they have to let a "Unified European Company" exist alongside them.

If we let national pride or local bureaucracy stop this again, we are essentially telling our best founders to leave for the US. Let’s stop protecting red tape and start protecting our future.

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lava_pidgeon 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This idea was made by French and German government . I'm not sure why do you think the German government is against it.

	▲	matesz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> This idea was made by French and German government It is true, but lets face it - it is just a high-level proposal. Better than previous ones for sure, but still just a proposal. And there is a massive gap between the PR and the legal reality. Germany and Austria already torpedoed the previous attempt (the SUP) specifically because it allowed online formation without a notary. So I would advise against certainty in that the fight is over. I also don't want to wait another 10 years. Honestly by that time just setup topco in UK and if series A will come just do the flip later if you don't want to go to SV straight away.

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inanothertime 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

National sovereignty is not national pride. Paying company taxes to the 28th regime evicts tax contributions to the company's home nation. Massive German tax money is already today used for non-national interests. EU-inc makes this only worse.

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prasoon2211 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is incorrect. Taxes, pensions and labour laws apply according to the country where the EU Inc is operating.

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matesz 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't understand the tax objection. The 28th regime changes corporate law, not fiscal law. A Berlin-based "EU-Inc" still pays full taxes (Körperschaftsteuer, Gewerbesteuer, etc.) to the local Finanzamt. It isn't a disembodied tax haven - it just standardizes the legal wrapper.

You are right that this threatens the status quo, though. If this works, founders based in Germany will likely abandon the GmbH. That will require swallowing some national pride and admitting that the current system is simply a less efficient, less competitive legal form for high-growth companies.

One thing I think is also worth mentioning are labor rights. I am not arguing against the German model of employee protection. Mitbestimmung could be viewed as a good thing, even if it will mean less power to the VC and / or founders. And frankly, I don't care if the consensus forces strict, German-style Mitbestimmung on the EU-Inc. Stricter form of EU-INC is still vastly better than nothing at all.

Asianometry has a great video on the labor rights in germany btw - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0teMtLT9XI).

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jcattle 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

National sovereignty in Europe is not possible without international collaboration.

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tietjens 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Massive German tax money is already today used for non-national interests.

Please elaborate. You're complaining that DE tax funds go to the EU? Very curious what you're talking about and your rational.

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miroljub 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You're complaining that DE tax funds go to the EU? Very curious what you're talking about and your rational.

Germany is the biggest net contributor to the EU. The money comes from German taxpayers, who receive disproportionately little value in return.

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jorge-d 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is wrong on so many levels. The German economy profits _a lot_ from the membership. You can't just look at the monetary in/out flows to/from EU accounts but to the system as a whole.

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3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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8964689797595 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

	▲	harperlee 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		For example, decades of pegging the value of the currency down, thus facilitating exports on a massive scale and thus pushing up the performance of whole industries, without other member states that would have had their currency devaluated being able to compete on prize.
	▲	pegasus 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		They probably didn't list any because estimating the upsides versus the downsides is what it's about, and that's very hard to quantify. Suggesting, like you seem to, that there are no upsides to the German economy whatsoever, is just not a serious argument so doesn't actually deserve a serious answer.
	▲	LunaSea 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Tariffs on Chinese EV cars that would obliterate the German automotive industry and economy?

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pegasus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That sounds an awful lot like the Trump whining about being taking advantage of while bullying countries around the world to do his bidding.

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cael450 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is the same argument Trump is using to blow up America's position in NATO.

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direwolf20 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe they're talking about the protection of Israel

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sevenzero 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's one of the idiotic "our tax money is spent for bicycle lanes in foreign countries" mindsets many right wingers share in Germany.

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miroljub 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Just because you accusse people to be "right wingers" because they don't want to fund bicycle lanes in foreign countries doesn't make them wrong.

If you want to fund bicycle lanes in foreign countries, go start a fund an fund them privately.

For the people that don't know the topic:

- yes, German taxpayers are indeed funding bicycle lanes in foreign countries

- it's not the only waste of money going to foreign countries

And additional questions:

- since when is it forbidden to complain against the waste of tax money?

- how does favouring tax cuts instead of tax money waste makes you a "right wing"?

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tchalla an hour ago | parent | next [-]

>> For the people that don't know the topic:

>> - yes, German taxpayers are indeed funding bicycle lanes in foreign countries

Just for people to know this, we are talking about 44Mn€ (20Mn€ + 24Mn€) of money in Peru as the commentator mentions below. It is wasteful but it has practically no effect on Germany. There are 1000x things that Germany does within Germany that moves the needle more than the talking about this rounding error. But that requires introspection and ownership of responsibility - both alien to the country’s normal compliance attitude of working.

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lifty 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree with your characterisation of what is going on, and at some point, the EU states will have to decide for full fiscal integration or for removing the common currency. You can't have a common currency without a common fiscal union. So we either have to integrate more or desintegrate more, this inbetween we have now is not working very well. Speaking as a European, not sure what is better.

	▲	miroljub 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not related to the comment, but in general I agree with you. You can't have a single monetary system without complete unification, including tax systems, budgeting systems, governance models, retirement systems, benefits. I mean, you can, like we have now, but it's not sustainable, and eventually we all have it worse. As a European, I would not want to go that way, since I'm afraid such a unified EU will be a bureaucratic monster that is even more centralized than the USA, and way more autocratic than any current EU state. I'd rather take a step back, dissolve much of the EU's competences, and go back to pure trade union, dissolve the EURO as a currency, and let every member state take sovereign decisions on their own.

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harperlee 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Funding other member states to be able to grow may be labeled waste, or investment on creating new markets for Germany.

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miroljub 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's the same fallacy as claiming that rich people save money by donating to charity.

Simple example:

- Germany gives 100 € to other EU states

- Those states 100 € to buy made in Germany goods

- German companies have 10 € profits from those sales

- German state collects 5 € from those profits

In summary, German taxpayers paid 100 € so the state can collect 5 € taxes, and companies another 5 €. Not a very good deal.

And this calculation is crazy optimistic, because it assumes that all money that Germany gives to other countries will be used to purchase German good. In reality, they will be spent willy-nilly and German companies may not see even 1 € in return.

	▲	ivan_gammel 4 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This calculation is flawed. German state collects much more than 5€, because there is VAT etc and, of course, employees of that company pay income tax from their share of that 100€ they just got back.
	▲	harperlee 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It seems that in your worldview value and wealth does not increase, just changes hands.

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sevenzero 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What people like you dont understand is what we get back from investing into foreign countries. We dont just build bicycle lanes there because we are such nice people.

	▲	miroljub 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Can you please explain (ELI style) the great benefits German taxpayers have from the bicycle lanes in Peru?

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psychoslave 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

National sovereignty, like "we are able to feed people with food grown on our soils?"

Mercosur anyone?

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niemandhier 4 hours ago | parent [-]

To be fair: our soil would greatly benefit from being allowed to rest for a decade.

In parts of Europe, our soil essentially depleted. I recommend reading.” 100 harvests.”

	▲	psychoslave 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This can happen without putting the most part of intensive payload in a form of external dependencies that can be cut at any point by many factors, while losing all the skills and knowledge on how to effectively plant and harvest. Qualified farmers don’t appear magically over night, let alone people with the passion required to invest their own life into it. And exporting the model that ravaged one own land, selling the poison that was forbidden in the countries exporting it, what kind of behavior is that? Letting some land having a bit of rest while the same depletion process is applied elsewhere, how fair is that?

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sevenzero 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you think we have a say in whatever our boomer politicians do, we have not. It wouldn't matter what parties we vote for, none of them are equipped to make informed decisions, and if they have people informing them they'll just ignore everything they learned. Germany currently is in a downward spiral into borderline fascism, I don't think coming with rational arguments will be fruitful. All people care about are foreigners and gas bills.

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matesz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Its important to understand the context. Germany, and Europe in general, is basically like a falling empire. It will be less and less significant and life won't get any better than it is relatively speaking. The same will almost certainly happen with the US, but first goes Europe.

Unfortunately citizens and therefore ruling elites of empires fueled by relatively extremely high standard of living for decades in comparison to the rest of the World always have very hard time swallowing their national pride. They have built very elaborate conceptual framework of linking their nationality to the level of relative success, fueled by politicians who want to make people feel good again about their nationality.

Just look at the news, almost everything directly or indirectly is linked to the concept "nation".

And in almost all cases of empires a natural consequence of their fall is war. So, it is very important to set expectations right.

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pegasus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Are you foretelling the dissolution of the British Empire which happened many decades ago? Are you saying Algeria will soon be free of French colonial rule? Is your middle name Nostradamus?

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matesz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It isn't prophecy. The Harvard Belfer Center study (Thucydides's Trap) analyzed 16 cases in the last 500 years where a rising power challenged a ruling empire: 12 of them ended in war.

The UK is actually the perfect example of this danger. The British Empire didn't dissolve peacefully - it was effectively destroyed by WWI and WWII while trying to suppress a rising Germany.

The subsequent transfer of hegemony to the US was a rare statistical anomaly (a "special case" driven by shared culture and total British exhaustion), but the Empire’s fall itself was catastrophic.

The pattern is violence, not peace. And remember that other aspiring nations to maintain it's position as Empire actively acting to destabilize situation in other states. The reason is simple - it is easiest way to maintain their status.

Brexit for instance was a boon for everybody but UK and EU. There is clear data already about Russian intervention. Recent overt US intervention into ensuring UK remaining separate and EU becoming separate. Think about it.

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pegasus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, but my point is that all that is in the past. The British Empire already fell, and so did all the other European colonial powers. These days, when I think of empire, countries like the US, China or Russia fit the bill much more than the EU, which is struggling to reach that level of integration and influence.

	▲	matesz 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> These days, when I think of empire, countries like the US, China or Russia fit the bill much more than the EU, which is struggling to reach that level of integration and influence. Of course! Especially because there is no unified army control. But this requires giving more context. We can't forget that there are ways, especially ways made by empires, to force other nations to go to war not only as an ally but also to make them less relevant and take a hit also. One of the main factors which makes this more probable, is what op mentioned, the raise of fascism and combatant militaristic attitudes exacerbated by the fact that their own nation / empire is a falling empire. And EU didn't fell yet, it is huge economy with more people than the US.

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randomNumber7 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Who in their right mind would start a company in Germany anyways?