Lets do something fun. Lets look at the 28th Regime together.
There isnt much info but we have 1) The EU Competitive Compass Plan 2) www.eu-inc.org website 3) René Repasi report 4) SoMe posts
This tell us the idea is
- A legal framework for EU states, to exist in parallel to national frameworks and optional for companies
- That would legislate corporate, labour, and tax law for these companies
- That must be an EU Regulation, binding for all member states
- That would help European companies be more competitive
But they dont explain how it would work in practice. So it’s our task to guess
Reading between the lines, the idea is a new legal system with full competence over the businesses that choose it (regardless of where they are based) and all member states must recognise it. That means that certain companies in a country could follow completely different rules than the rest
In effect the 28th Regime is like creating a new member state, with the caveat that it would be a landless imaginary state. Lets call it EU State
The 27 member states would then need to recognise this “state” as they recognise each other, letting it regulate itself and allowing people capital and goods to flow in and out, because it would be an equal member of the single market
In practice this would mean that European businesses could incorporate under this “EU State” without moving a single asset or person, and do things like hire or raise capital anywhere in the EU
This raises tons of questions. But for this exercise we accept it and allow for a Regulation that creates it
So voilà, now we have it. But wait, we have not discussed who will govern it. Like, who gets to write, apply and enforce these laws?
So is our job to guess again and I can only think of two ways
1. The 28th regime becomes in effect a new member state. The regime becomes the 28th member state and a new state is born. But to be a state, it would need minimum institutions - executive (government), legislative (parliament) and judiciary (courts) - that cannot be the same EU institutions because these are supranational.
So again who would define these institutions? How would it be governed? And like any candidate state it would need to follow some form of accession process, right? Like treaty negotiation and members ratification, right?
Damn, this sounds like a nightmare
2. The EU institutions become the 28th regime. The power to develop, regulate and enforce these laws are absorbed by the EU institutions. The Commission drafts the rules, the Parliament adopt them and the Court of Justice enforces them. But this would not be a parallel regime, it would be horizontal right? Because the EU institutions are supranational. So in practice it would be a transfer of national competences.
But wait, is it possible to do this via Regulation? Dont things like this require a change of the EU foundational treaty and member unanimity?
Holy cow, this sounds like a Federalisation project in disguise
