It has been 100 days since Ms Ursula von der Leyen’s second mandate as Commission President began.

A lot has happened in the last few months in the European Union and globally. The socioeconomic and geopolitical landscape has shifted. One thing that is diametrically different in this mandate is the Commission’s consideration of businesses as drivers for sustainability and competitiveness.

From the Competitiveness Compass to the Clean Industrial Deal, the Action plan for affordable energy and the first two Omnibus packages aimed at reducing administrative costs and reporting requirements associated with corporate sustainability reporting. The Single Market Strategy call for evidence allowed citizens and businesses to address the barriers they face within the Single Market. It is clear that the Commission has put many plans in motion that seek to propel the European economy further in both their industrialisation and decarbonisation efforts.

Nevertheless, the extent to which these proposals will be effective remains to be seen. The Simplification omnibus package has introduced several changes that the business community could largely support. However, these proposals still need to undergo the rest of the legislative process in the European Parliament and the European Council. To this end, the proposals that the Commission has introduced could be changed significantly and as such EFB will continue following the legislative process and advocating for the proposals that make sense to SME-sized, mid-caps and large family businesses. 

While we eagerly await the small mid-cap definition, in the second quarter of 2025, EFB will continue pushing for an EU-wide mid-cap category consisting of mid-caps of different sizes.

The EU’s Scale-up and Start-up strategy will be vital to Europe’s competitiveness and as such we look forward to engaging with the topic throughout this mandate in particular as it pertains to scale-ups.

Now that we have identified many topical points, initiatives and proposals made by von der Leyen’s second Commission within the first 100 days we move on to the issues that should be considered going forward.

We could not help but notice that the topic of business transfers was nowhere to be found. That is why when we spoke to Commissioner Dombrovskis on the 4th of March, we highlighted the importance of business transfers to European competitiveness, sustained development and business growth within the single market.

Moreover, in the Commission’s Political Guidelines, the Commission committed to holding regular implementation dialogues with stakeholders to better align implementation with business reality. This is a good suggestion and we want to encourage the Commission and the European Parliament to speak to companies of all sizes with greater frequency. It is important that the regular implementation dialogues with stakeholders are a reality throughout the next five years.

Overall, while we continue to assess the proposals that have come out of these first 100 days, EFB will work to defend the interests of family businesses across the EU.