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>For startups, Europe’s main problem is fragmentation. EU exist exactly with the purpose of removing "fragmentation" and integration of Europe into a single gi

by mrtksn 2y ago

>For startups, Europe’s main problem is fragmentation. EU exist exactly with the purpose of removing "fragmentation" and integration of Europe into a single giant market but European countries are not ready to let go their sovereignty and do a lot of things their way. As the UK found out with Brexit, EU removes red tape and simplifies bureaucracy, thus makes trade frictionless as possible and not the other way around. Anyway, I don't think this is the root cause of EU lagging in "tech". EU doesn't lag in technology, it lags in high growth speculative businesses and I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. Europeans can invest in these things in countries where people are willing to do it, reap the financial benefits if there's any and once the enshittification begins it can protect its own population from it. For example, once the enshittification begins and the companies resort in rent seeking EU regulates those to protect the consumers. The reason Europeans don't do this "tech" business is cultural IMHO. No regulation or removing of regulation can change it.

seydor 2y ago
> EU exist exactly with the purpose of removing "fragmentation" and integration of Europe into a single giant marke In many ways it seems the fragmented economy was more liquid than the EU area is now. Instead of having pockets of acceleration in small corners of the EU, we now have uniformly heavy friction throughout. That's why businesses can find more dynamic business partners in china or turkey than they can in EU. Eastern european countries are often doing a lot to remove friction, but even they are often punished or asked to change their ways in order to keep with the rest of the block. It's turning to a crabs in a bucket situation
- Lorena783lopez 2y ago
  [dead]
- mrtksn 2y ago
  What friction? do you have concrete examples? I’m curious.
  - seydor 2y ago
    see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40340805#40341928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40340805#40341928
    - mrtksn 2y ago
      Right, the classic issue of not being a single country. AFAIK EU is pushing to fix this through Eurozone and tax harmonisation but some European countries don't feel like it. Probably they have an advantageous position or an industry they would like to protect. Like the whole idea behind EU is basically fixing this. It started as a single market and through the years Europe is trying to bring the continent together and how stuff should be done(all the EU standardizations are essentially about ironing out the legal differences between ~30 countries so that it function like one single country). Not there yet, unfortunately.

by mrtksn 2y ago

seydor 2y ago

> EU exist exactly with the purpose of removing "fragmentation" and integration of Europe into a single giant marke In many ways it seems the fragmented economy was more liquid than the EU area is now. Instead of having pockets of acceleration in small corners of the EU, we now have uniformly heavy friction throughout. That's why businesses can find more dynamic business partners in china or turkey than they can in EU. Eastern european countries are often doing a lot to remove friction, but even they are often punished or asked to change their ways in order to keep with the rest of the block. It's turning to a crabs in a bucket situation

Lorena783lopez 2y ago
[dead]
mrtksn 2y ago
What friction? do you have concrete examples? I’m curious.
- seydor 2y ago
  see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40340805#40341928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40340805#40341928
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    Right, the classic issue of not being a single country. AFAIK EU is pushing to fix this through Eurozone and tax harmonisation but some European countries don't feel like it. Probably they have an advantageous position or an industry they would like to protect. Like the whole idea behind EU is basically fixing this. It started as a single market and through the years Europe is trying to bring the continent together and how stuff should be done(all the EU standardizations are essentially about ironing out the legal differences between ~30 countries so that it function like one single country). Not there yet, unfortunately.