As a dual citizen of the US and an EU country, I have first hand experience with both systems. In the US if you want to start a new company you can basically st

As a dual citizen of the US and an EU country, I have first hand experience with both systems. In the US if you want to start a new company you can basically start selling or offering your service and then sort out legal, accounting and registration later. In most countries in the EU you start by hiring a lawyer and accountant and then wait for months for various permits and registration before you can get anything meaningful done. This is the fundamental difference IMO, the barrier to getting started in the EU is way too high and the red tape is a full time job even for small businesses. Some EU countries do better at this than others of course, but it's a general trend amongst most.