The Single Market is the European Union’s greatest economic asset, but too many companies still experience it as a collection of twenty-seven different legal, administrative and regulatory environments. It is from this contradiction that the proposal for a 28th regime, EU Inc., emerges: an optional company form capable of offering businesses a simpler, more predictable and more scalable legal framework for cross-border growth.

The new AREL Single Market Lab policy paper, developed through a process of consultation with experts and practitioners in the field and coordinated by Professor Marco Ventoruzzo, examines the main legal concerns raised in the debate on EU Inc. and proposes a limited set of targeted amendments to strengthen its legal robustness, credibility and practical usefulness.

The paper addresses some of the proposal’s most critical issues: its EU legal basis, the relationship with national law, employee participation rights, preventive controls, directors’ liability, financing instruments for start-ups and scale-ups, access to capital markets and the risk of divergent interpretations across Member States.

The critical observations raised so far do not justify abandoning or weakening the proposal. On the contrary, they show that the project has been taken seriously and that it can be strengthened through targeted amendments. If carefully refined, EU Inc. could become one of the most concrete instruments of the One Europe, One Market Roadmap: not merely a new company form, but a practical step towards a Single Market that European businesses can genuinely use.