Competitiveness is important for the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted this during her State of the Union speech, for which we are grateful.
We are pleased to see increased attention being paid to the creation of quality jobs and hope that the European Commission and the European Parliament will look at Europe’s family businesses to see what quality jobs look like and use them as blueprints.
Overcoming dependencies that have been weaponised and used against the EU is a crucial reason to invest in clean technology, energy infrastructure and more.
The calculated savings of 8 billion euros per year by implementing the Omnibus packages in bureaucracy related costs is vital for businesses. It is however, concerning that it has taken a significant amount of time to address this issue. Therefore, we hope that there will be a yearly report clearly stating the process in the reduction of bureaucracy and the actual saving costs felt by businesses. Only by monitoring implementation of these bureaucracy cutting measures can we know where more needs to be done.
We agree that the Single Market is incomplete. The Single Market Roadmap to 2028 which will explore capital, services, energy, telecoms, the 28th regime and the fifth freedom for knowledge and innovation will surely enable more competition within the Single Market.
The 28th legal regime for innovative companies this a great idea. However, it will require in our opinion, great coordinated effort, agreement and focus to streamline the process of starting and growing a business within the EU.
Von Der Leyen rightly mentioned that “Only what is measured gets done” – it is for this reason that family businesses and their contribution to the national and regional economies should be measured.
Speeding up Savings and Investments Union is of course great for businesses and for investment in Europe. However, the Savings and Investment Union is in many ways the continuation of the Capital Markets Union which was launched in 2015. Ten years on, this has still not progressed enough. Thus, we hope that the Savings and Investment Union does come to fruition and deliver on what is promised.
The “made in Europe criteria in public procurement” may be unachievable since we depend on critical raw materials and parts for products from other countries outside of the EU. It may also be seen as a contradiction.
The Industrial Accelerator Act which is planned for the fourth quarter of 2025 provides a critical opportunity to re-energise European high energy industries.
We would have liked to hear more about the importance of Europe’s entrepreneurs and businesses.
For the moment, we will continue to analyse the State of the European Union further to follow the aforementioned topics and to voice the concerns of family businesses in Europe.