MARIO DRAGHI SHAKES THE ROUTINE AGAIN
In a recent speech on the occasion of the Charlemagne award ceremony, Mario Draghi lamented the cumbersome and slow decision process of the EU, and calls for a”pragmatic federalism”. The obligation of building up a common Defense is a crucial reason to do so. More leadership is also expected.
FRANCE: DO WHAT I SAY DONT DO WHAT I DO
Despite recent calls to prefer sovereign solutions for the Government, the French Defense Ministry is about to renew a contract with Microsoft, for 3 years. It appears that the Ministry will pledge for no connections between its systems and AZURE CLOUD – which might prove difficult to obtain …- and will launch a survey to define an exit strategy. Better late than never ,
EU INC: STILL IN BALANCE
The project to introduce the possibility for a company to register anywhere in the EU and be automatically enlisted in all member States – thus avoiding the hurdles’race well exposed by Arthur Mensch during his hearing in the French National Assembly – is still on the razor’s edge. We reproduce a Tribune by a set of members of European Parliament (MEPs):
After two years of campaigning, 26,000 signatures, and countless conversations with founders, investors, and policymakers across Europe, the European Commission published a proposal for a corporate legal framework this March. They even named it after our campaign.That was a big moment. But a proposal with our name on it doesn’t automatically mean it will create a real standard.
So we did a legal deep dive on behalf of the European startup community. We collaborated with top legal experts. Here’s what we found and what it means for startups: It’s not the 28th regime we originally campaigned for. It’s not one fully harmonized European startup entity. It’s not a centralized EU company law. It acts more like a plug-in into every country’s existing legal system.
But if implemented correctly, it can achieve the same goal: a real pan-European standard. It works similar to how in the US, companies choose to register in Delaware but actually operate in California – under California taxes and laws.
This is possible because of the free choice of registration seat.
But this free choice is also the one thing that makes or breaks it. Without it, EU–INC becomes 27 national regimes sharing a logo. Fragmentation with slightly better branding.
Several lobby groups are actively pushing to remove that clause. The very clause that makes this useful and makes a real standard possible.
The ECA has since Day1 supported the project, even though it falls short of creating a really unified frame for economic activity across Europe, which would be welcome. No need to say we sympathize with the views expressed by the MEPs.
EURO-OFFICE READY TO FLY
This new collaborative suite is designed to help public authorities, educational institutions, and regulated sectors get rid of American productivity clouds, while offering end users a familiar experience, able to replace for instance Microsoft Office. It is developed by a consortium bringing together some leading names in cloud and collaborative publishing in Europe: Ionos, Nextcloud, EuroStack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian, BTactic, Open-Xchange, and Office.eu.
USA AI: IS THE WIND TURNING ?
While the USA are generally innovation friendly and early adopters, the mood on AI seems to be changing. According to recent polls, 57% of American voters say that the risks posed by AI outweigh its benefits -this despite the fact that, unlike in Europe, the AI providers are American themselves. And a survey conducted by the University of Maryland in August 2025 shows strong bipartisan support for AI regulation, a field in which the Trump administration currently stands out for its absence: 84% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats want the law to require companies to have their AI tested by the government before being able to deploy it.
