Europe has a Single Market. But not yet the law to match

What if the real barrier to scaling across Europe isn’t economic… but legal?

Today, every time a company crosses an internal EU border, legal complexity starts again from scratch:

➡️ new corporate rules
➡️ new contractual practices
➡️ new financing frameworks
➡️ new dispute-resolution systems

👉 In practice, we still have 27 legal markets instead of one.

📊 According to Eurochambres (2024),

“Differing contractual and legal practices remain the number-one obstacle to the Single Market.”

💡 A response is emerging: One Market One Law.

Launched in Brussels on 9 February 2026, this civil-society initiative has a clear ambition:

👉 to build a European Business Code
👉 to provide the missing legal infrastructure of the Single Market

⚖️ The core idea?

A European business-law framework that is:

✔️ optional (never imposed)
✔️ common
✔️ designed for cross-border activities

🚀 A first concrete step: the “28th regime” (EU Inc.)

An optional European company-law regime:

• valid across the entire Union
• fast, digital, and cost-efficient
• freely chosen by companies

👉 A credible gateway toward a unified European business law.

📚 The broader vision:

A 13-book European Business Code covering the full life of companies —
from company law and financing to insolvency, financial markets, IP, and tax.

🎯 What’s at stake?

Without legal unity:

➡️ SMEs struggle to scale
➡️ scale-ups slow down
➡️ Europe loses competitiveness

🧭 The real question is no longer whether to harmonise…
but how fast we can move forward.

🤝 This is an open project:

lawyers, academics, businesses, policymakers — all have a role to play.

🇪🇺 Completing the Single Market — not with slogans, but with law.