> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed.
This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders. The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region. Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US.
This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on.
> EU citizens like American companies
As an EU citizen, I don't bank with an American company, I don't drive an American car, I don't shop in American grocery stores nor is importing many American foods allowed on safety grounds, I don't buy American fuel, my private health insurance isn't American, and so on and forth. I only buy American tech where there isn't a more competitive Chinese alternative. I'm not against the US in any way, shape or form. I just don't think we think about the US in the EU as much as you think.
You are right in the sense that the European way of life is very different from the US way of life and we don't care that much for the economy. Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. We just don't value it as highly as other aspects in life – there is a strong sentiment of rejection of the rat race, growth of shareholder value at all costs, and other such American things in Europe.
Perhaps it would benefit you to first examine the evidence on the ground, and then re-evaluate if your belief in American values (which I respect – totally great values in many cases) blinds you to European culture around capitalism. Europe is quite socialist, after all. Naturally, less effort will be spent on capital, more on society.
> There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent.
It might be possible, but it’s not easy and is rarely done outside a few select countries, such as Switzerland. I’ve received offers from recruiters in Poland and Germany, but most of them seem to be trying to cut labor costs since hiring a foreign worker is often cheaper than employing a domestic one. However, when factoring in cost-of-living adjustments, these opportunities aren’t very appealing. The same principle applies in reverse; for instance, a German wouldn’t move to Lithuania for work because the wages there are significantly lower.
> Remote work is also much simplified.
If I’m employed in Lithuania and want to work remotely in Germany, I can only do so for less than 50% of the calendar year. Otherwise, I’d need to be employed in Germany. As far as I know, this restriction doesn’t apply in the United States.
> The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region.
The same applies to the United States, which is the point of comparison for the EU in this case. Additionally, this is highly dependent on the industry you’re targeting, as the requirements can vary significantly for certain products.
> Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US.
In theory, Germans will buy German products, and Poles will buy Polish products. This used to be true for digital services too, such as contracting, until companies started cutting costs by looking for cheaper labor in Eastern Europe.
I’ve worked all over Europe in the games industry as did some of my long-term friends. Relocating for employment is a broader discussion but from a regulatory perspective, it just involves driving a car. No visas, no national insurance registration, no right to work worries, etc.
Yes, salaries vary but not much in companies hiring at the global level.
The point of comparison was not the US, but pre-EU Europe as the claim in the comment I responded to was that the single market is a myth. It is not.
I don’t think Germans buy German, Poles buy Polish, etc. Many Europeans drive German cars and many play Polish games like Cyberpunk 2077, French games like Dishonored and what Ubisoft makes. Many use Scandinavian banks and so on.
Regarding employment, you are right that it is still not effortless, but you can often be employed in one EU country and live in another. This used to be called being a frontier worker I believe. With remote work, that label isn’t used anymore. But yes, living in Lithuania you’d want to be employed in Germany probably in your situation. Before Brexit, I lived in England and was employed in Italy — no problem aside from getting a taxpayer ID of sorts in Italy which was a minor hassle (mostly slow process).
I really didn’t face much of the issues people present in this thread while moving around in the last few decades. Nor have my friends. One year they work in Oslo, the other in Lisbon, then in Warsaw. Some start their own companies to contract all over Europe as supplier agreements are relatively easy from a tax perspective. I think this whole moving around Europe concern is something solved by filling out some forms for 8 hours every year and maybe paying a local accountant sometimes to sort out taxes.
> I’ve worked all over Europe in the games industry as did some of my long-term friends. Relocating for employment is a broader discussion but from a regulatory perspective, it just involves driving a car.
This simplifies the entire process. For fields like software, it is easier. For other fields - not so much.
> Yes, salaries vary but not much in companies hiring at the global level.
For Western Europe this might be true. But if you take into account Eastern Europe and Central (or Southern) Europe, this is entirely off the mark. Until very recently a Software Engineer in Lithuania could have expected to earn anywhere from 35 000 to 50 000 Eur while the same salaries in Western Europe would be double that. For other fields the difference is even more noticeable.
> but you can often be employed in one EU country and live in another
This isn't true. Most companies don't want to deal with cross-border taxes. If you live in Lithuania and work in Germany for more than half the calendar year, you (need to) start paying taxes in Germany. This either means you'll be employed in Germany (by a parent/child company that is listed there) or you won't work there.
> But yes, living in Lithuania you’d want to be employed in Germany probably in your situation.
This is no longer the case. Germany is not an attractive country anymore. It would only make sense to emigrate to the United States, if strictly speaking about salary. There are far less opportunities in Germany and not so many interesting projects to work on.
> I don’t think Germans buy German, Poles buy Polish, etc. Many Europeans drive German cars and many play Polish games like Cyberpunk 2077, French games like Dishonored and what Ubisoft makes. Many use Scandinavian banks and so on.
You are looking at consumer products (cars, games) but in industry they will buy local. It is very difficult to get into such markets, unlike the United States. There is a label of 'quality' attached to German engineering (even though most of their engineering is outsourced nowadays).
I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion on a case-by-case basis because experiences will differ based on the field you work in. The core issue is that it isn't as seamless an experience as in the United States and it is rarely done in practice. Unfortunately, I do not see any changes in this regard because of the difference in wealth across countries in the EU, a huge issue that wasn't dealt with.
Just to clarify — hiring on a global level means an employer is competing in the global market, offering a global rate for a role.
There is an ex-Uber engineer on YouTube who has a video breaking down SWE salaries by local, regional, global and probably more levels. If you can compete at a global level (companies around the world want to hire you), the employers have no chance to get an expert like you if they don’t pay the global rate, even in Poland (for games). If you only compete in the local market, then the local economy becomes relevant and you get salary differences between East/South and West EU.
By working in Germany I meant living in LT and being employed in DE. I only have an example of living in the UK and being employed in IT in my experience, but it wasn’t difficult. I just had to pay my primary taxes (against salary) there.
> Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US. This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on.
Here are two examples:
Spotify, a Swedish company, had to go country-by-country to cover the EU because each country has separate regulatory bodies (eg GEMA in Germany,ZAMP in Croatia, etc...). It was in the US a lot earlier than in some EU countries.
Klarna is still not available in my country (Croatia). The banking union is not there yet and Croatia is too small a market (understandably). So, by mere fact of being in the EU, Klarna does not cover the entire EU.
This is absolutely not true. Moving across Europe is significantly harder than in US. On top of that companies hiring across Europe need to go B2B or EoR. The countries are absolutely not harmonised in terms of regulations, labor law or employing people.
I am sorry but you absolutely have no clue what you are talking about.
Moving across Europe may be harder than moving across the US. But moving across Europe (at least the EU) today is much easier than it was 40 years ago, pre-EU.
The bureaucracy can be a nightmare. Ironically one of the best country to move to pre-brexit was the UK. I did that without a lawyer. My other moves across EU needed a lawyer to sort out the local applications and required months ahead bookings.
I also had all sort of stupid issues which prolonged one immigration situation for 3 years.
I complained to the EU the host country was in violation of EU rules and they came back after 2 years saying it was my problem and that the host country was free to do whatever.
The EU is an absolute joke and a bureaucrauts' dream, no wonder our economy shrunk to half the USA's in the last 10 years.
I agree, it's definitely much easier than it was. But when comparing EU to USA and asking 'why', I think it's extremely important to remember how much less of a single market Europe is than the US/China.
> Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc.
Total valuation of LSE Euronext is laughable compared to NYSE or Nasdaq. (5,7 vs 30 + 16 trillion USD).
Not to mention that largest European company is producing scarfs and handbags vs Nvidia, Apple or Amazon. It is XIX century vs XXI century comparing EU to US.
Not for long. There are a lot of similar drugs, some already on the market and others in the pipeline. Recent clinical trials have shown that Eli Lilly's Zepbound (tirzepatide) is superior to Novo Nordisk's Wegovy (semaglutide).
Novo Nordisk also makes cheaper insulin which probably keeps Eli Lilly in check in free markets.
Come to think of it, Airbus is a similar example of European competition with the US that keeps the unfettered capitalist competitor in check. Boeing stands to lose something if there is a competitor waiting to eat their market share. Of course, the US is a bit protectionist so free market rules don’t always apply there. But they do in many other parts of the world.
> This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders.
There is absolute friction for people to even move across the borders. I moved to Sweden a few years ago and it took 8 months before I was fully part of the system. Now I am looking to move to Norway, and it's going to be the same ordeal.
There are countries where you can just show up with your bags and start living there but it doesn't apply to all of them.
So good luck recruiting talent, when the talent has to jump through hoops to get an ID card or open a bank account or even rent an apartment.
> The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region. Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US.
It's not about regulatory risk but about overheads. The rules for selling cross border are vague and opaque and you need a PHD just to make sure that you comply with all the regulations or a good lawyer.
Yes, in theory you can reach 450M customers, in practice much less so.
> I just don't think we think about the US in the EU as much as you think.
Maybe you don't but I can assure you that our leaders think of the US for the simple reason that the EU is not in position of strength at the moment.
Case and point, the EU leadership is scrambling to avoid Trump starting a trade war with the EU while also trying to placate China who is also starting to show it's strength.
If we were in a position of strength, things would be different but the EU simply does not have the muscle to put up a fight.
The EU has stopped investing it's its armies and can barely help Ukraine. It has some tech companies but an order of magnitude less than the US. It is currently losing the space race against the US and China and it obliterated it's industrial base.
All of this is going to come back to haunt us at some point and not in a good way.
You have to realize that most of the businesses you mentioned are completely dependent on American infrastructure. Where do you think that Klarna et al are deploying their applications? On Hetzner? No on AWS or GCP or Azure.
How do you get access to those applications? Through the app store or Google play which both belong to American companies.
Who is driving the innovation in AI , self driving cars, robotics? No the EU.
> You are right in the sense that the European way of life is very different from the US way of life and we don't care that much for the economy. Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. We just don't value it as highly as other aspects in life – there is a strong sentiment of rejection of the rat race, growth of shareholder value at all costs, and other such American things in Europe.
You don't care about the economy until your government services start shutting down because the economy is in the dumpster due to 20 years of under-investments and over taxation.
If productivity does not go up, if people don't care as you said then the outcome is stagnation and a decline of quality of life.
The services you rely on are paid for by the taxes raised on the companies of Europe. Who is going to fund the European lifestyle when companies decide to leave the EU taking their profits and taxes elsewhere because the EU is smothering them with rules and regulations?
The business I mentioned depend on American infra which depends on Chinese components that run, often, open source code written by Americans, Europeans, Russians, and many others. It’s a globalised world. But your claim was that EU has an environment that can’t sustain or cultivate new successful businesses. Evidence suggests that is not the case.
Countries with a strong social safety net are not experiencing the stagnation in quality of life you describe. Once again, look at the evidence. There are various quality of life indices.
Sorry but chasing money at every opportunity does not lead to better outcomes. This is very evident in capitalist western countries now with record inequality, private capital dictating politics, CEO and other shootings in the streets, healthcare poverty and so on. I’m not against capitalism as many EU welfare states are still fundamentally capitalist, but I’m just saying the quality of life claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Yeah, you need an accountant and a lawyer to do business across the single market if you don’t want to learn the local laws. I don’t think you wouldn’t in the US though. Compare and contrast CA consumer and corporate laws to TX laws. They are quite different. You would benefit from a lawyer. They aren’t that expensive in the EU compared to running a business though — I currently retain a lawyer for €2.5k per year. So about €200 per month. This is from a private corporate law firm in Eastern Europe. They prepare 4-5 documents every year for statutory needs for that price and do an excellent job. If your business has at least 5 employees or meaningful investment (VC, angel, etc), this becomes a negligible cost. You are totally right that dealing with bureaucracy in the EU is a total headache, as I believe it is in Cali and so on. But I claim that this headache can be removed with a minor expense and therefore it is not a meaningful obstacle.
This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders. The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region. Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US.
This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on.
> EU citizens like American companies
As an EU citizen, I don't bank with an American company, I don't drive an American car, I don't shop in American grocery stores nor is importing many American foods allowed on safety grounds, I don't buy American fuel, my private health insurance isn't American, and so on and forth. I only buy American tech where there isn't a more competitive Chinese alternative. I'm not against the US in any way, shape or form. I just don't think we think about the US in the EU as much as you think.
You are right in the sense that the European way of life is very different from the US way of life and we don't care that much for the economy. Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. We just don't value it as highly as other aspects in life – there is a strong sentiment of rejection of the rat race, growth of shareholder value at all costs, and other such American things in Europe.
Perhaps it would benefit you to first examine the evidence on the ground, and then re-evaluate if your belief in American values (which I respect – totally great values in many cases) blinds you to European culture around capitalism. Europe is quite socialist, after all. Naturally, less effort will be spent on capital, more on society.