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EU-wide regulation might make sense to give a "stick" to existing giants, but what about creating an EU-wide "carrot" for European companies to become giants (i

EU-wide regulation might make sense to give a "stick" to existing giants, but what about creating an EU-wide "carrot" for European companies to become giants (in the form of unified market and capital)? Ms. Vestager kind of glosses over this (2:40 min into the interview video).

paganel 6y ago
It’s hard to become an European unified Internet market because of the language barriers.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Local laws and regulation is a bigger issue I think. Yes EU unifies a lot of things, but also leaves a lot of details up to the individual nations which means things aren't quite as similar as one might imagine.
- bserge 6y ago
  OK, bear with me here. So, a US company can create a huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't? Seems that language and regulations are not the barriers here. Even US companies aren't that "unified", they're hailing from a specific state (often California) and have nothing to do with the other 49. You could easily swap "California" with "Germany". Looks to me like access to capital and risk aversion are the biggest problems. Always have been. The UK is by far the best place for a startup in Europe, and I'd wager that will stay the same even after Brexit, as long as every other country has this obsession with saving cash and not investing in risky business, or any business at all. Localization is easy, getting millions for a startup is hard. And God forbid you fail, you will very likely never get any funding from anyone in the EU and will have to move to the US. Such a waste of entrepreneurs.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't? Yes, because that US company was already big in the first place thanks to its foothold in the US (a single-language market). The same thing was starting to happen with AliExpress just before the pandemic but I'm not so sure how things stand right now (politics-wise, mostly). It's pretty hard close to impossible to become a "google" or "facebook" in the local German or French markets big enough to conquer the rest of the continent. Spotify and the rest of the similar European products have had the success that they encountered precisely because they focused on an international (i.e. English-speaking) market first.
    - bserge 6y ago
      I believe it's possible with a way bigger marketing/sales team, from all around Europe, so the product could be marketed all over Europe (and the world). Basically, I think starting with just one language is a mistake - if you're aiming for the whole EU market, start with as many languages as you can. Of course, that will be more expensive on a continent where funding is not easily available. Some resellers, Wish and Joom for example, have ads in every European language, it's the same ad but with different text/voiceover. Seems to work pretty well for them.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Seems to have worked out well enough for Blocket.se/LeBonCoin.fr and Covoiturage.fr/BlaBlaCar.com... Not to mention Nokia... until bought by Microsoft!
  - jariel 6y ago
    "OK, bear with me here. So, a US company can create a huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't?" US companies can create massive businesses within the US. They are backed by massive VCs, national press. Once you're 'big in the US' you can knock out many other countries like dominos - except for those that are protected, or too big, or both. EU nations are mostly separate. The Swedish market is basically too small to be relevant for most things, to have a credible business model you have to raise money on the basis of 'EU wide' and that's a hard thing to do. French media doesn't care one bit about Swedish startups, just the opposite, they probably prefer their own. Ebay and Amazon bought up all their smaller competition in Europe, that same pattern is repeated. So it's an existential problem.
- toyg 6y ago
  The language barrier is a relatively minor issue, in the great scheme of things. The real barriers are on practical matters on taxation and investment, like the VAT situation. While every country is allowed to have fundamentally different tax policies and regulation, there is no real level-playing field. The rules are still too loose. We need a degree of fiscal integration at the federal level, similar to what the US have. At that point, smart people running smart companies will be free enough to deal with the cultural-border problems just fine.
- Bayart 6y ago
  Companies that have multi-lingualism built in and are a bit savy about EU-specific contexts do just fine. In fact if they do well in one country they tend to do well everywhere in the continental EU. We're all remarkably similar, despite the linguistic barriers and the remaining chauvinistic prejudices. I'm thinking about Zalando, Vinted, Idealo, ManoMano etc.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Competition doesn't even arise in the US now, it's monopolies and rent extractors all the way. If some of them are forced to break up or be outright outlawed, that should be enough of a carrot for local competitors.
safog 6y ago
Everyone's (EU, India etc.) super impressed by how China was able to homegrow a couple of tech giants and wants in on the action. This is more about having EU be competitive in the tech space than it is about really protecting the interests of ordinary Europeans. They're well within their rights to do it of course, that's how trade works, but I expect the US to defend American companies from unfair sanctions like this one.
PeterisP 6y ago
The market is getting much more unified every year - the difference between now and 2000 is immense. But it's just going to take much more time still. In many areas widely discussed EU-wide regulations don't add regulatory barriers, they harmonize existing national law, thus removing barriers between EU states (though potentially increasing barriers between EU and USA) - but this harmonization requires compromises and thus time.

paganel 6y ago

It’s hard to become an European unified Internet market because of the language barriers.

magicalhippo 6y ago
Local laws and regulation is a bigger issue I think. Yes EU unifies a lot of things, but also leaves a lot of details up to the individual nations which means things aren't quite as similar as one might imagine.
bserge 6y ago
OK, bear with me here. So, a US company can create a huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't? Seems that language and regulations are not the barriers here. Even US companies aren't that "unified", they're hailing from a specific state (often California) and have nothing to do with the other 49. You could easily swap "California" with "Germany". Looks to me like access to capital and risk aversion are the biggest problems. Always have been. The UK is by far the best place for a startup in Europe, and I'd wager that will stay the same even after Brexit, as long as every other country has this obsession with saving cash and not investing in risky business, or any business at all. Localization is easy, getting millions for a startup is hard. And God forbid you fail, you will very likely never get any funding from anyone in the EU and will have to move to the US. Such a waste of entrepreneurs.
- paganel 6y ago
  > huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't? Yes, because that US company was already big in the first place thanks to its foothold in the US (a single-language market). The same thing was starting to happen with AliExpress just before the pandemic but I'm not so sure how things stand right now (politics-wise, mostly). It's pretty hard close to impossible to become a "google" or "facebook" in the local German or French markets big enough to conquer the rest of the continent. Spotify and the rest of the similar European products have had the success that they encountered precisely because they focused on an international (i.e. English-speaking) market first.
  - bserge 6y ago
    I believe it's possible with a way bigger marketing/sales team, from all around Europe, so the product could be marketed all over Europe (and the world). Basically, I think starting with just one language is a mistake - if you're aiming for the whole EU market, start with as many languages as you can. Of course, that will be more expensive on a continent where funding is not easily available. Some resellers, Wish and Joom for example, have ads in every European language, it's the same ad but with different text/voiceover. Seems to work pretty well for them.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Seems to have worked out well enough for Blocket.se/LeBonCoin.fr and Covoiturage.fr/BlaBlaCar.com... Not to mention Nokia... until bought by Microsoft!
- jariel 6y ago
  "OK, bear with me here. So, a US company can create a huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't?" US companies can create massive businesses within the US. They are backed by massive VCs, national press. Once you're 'big in the US' you can knock out many other countries like dominos - except for those that are protected, or too big, or both. EU nations are mostly separate. The Swedish market is basically too small to be relevant for most things, to have a credible business model you have to raise money on the basis of 'EU wide' and that's a hard thing to do. French media doesn't care one bit about Swedish startups, just the opposite, they probably prefer their own. Ebay and Amazon bought up all their smaller competition in Europe, that same pattern is repeated. So it's an existential problem.
toyg 6y ago
The language barrier is a relatively minor issue, in the great scheme of things. The real barriers are on practical matters on taxation and investment, like the VAT situation. While every country is allowed to have fundamentally different tax policies and regulation, there is no real level-playing field. The rules are still too loose. We need a degree of fiscal integration at the federal level, similar to what the US have. At that point, smart people running smart companies will be free enough to deal with the cultural-border problems just fine.
Bayart 6y ago
Companies that have multi-lingualism built in and are a bit savy about EU-specific contexts do just fine. In fact if they do well in one country they tend to do well everywhere in the continental EU. We're all remarkably similar, despite the linguistic barriers and the remaining chauvinistic prejudices. I'm thinking about Zalando, Vinted, Idealo, ManoMano etc.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Competition doesn't even arise in the US now, it's monopolies and rent extractors all the way. If some of them are forced to break up or be outright outlawed, that should be enough of a carrot for local competitors.

safog 6y ago

Everyone's (EU, India etc.) super impressed by how China was able to homegrow a couple of tech giants and wants in on the action. This is more about having EU be competitive in the tech space than it is about really protecting the interests of ordinary Europeans. They're well within their rights to do it of course, that's how trade works, but I expect the US to defend American companies from unfair sanctions like this one.

PeterisP 6y ago

The market is getting much more unified every year - the difference between now and 2000 is immense. But it's just going to take much more time still. In many areas widely discussed EU-wide regulations don't add regulatory barriers, they harmonize existing national law, thus removing barriers between EU states (though potentially increasing barriers between EU and USA) - but this harmonization requires compromises and thus time.