Fewer rules: Europe was built on coal and steel, not paperwork

Robert Schuman and the founding fathers of the European Community understood: those who cooperate economically do not wage war against one another.

From this conviction emerged our continent’s most successful idea of peace and freedom. The single market was therefore never an end in itself; it was a promise of opportunity, competition and economic strength.

‘Our mother is Dutch. Our father was German’

For me, this isn’t a historical footnote. Our mother is Dutch. Our father was German. In our family, Europe was never theory, but everyday life: reconciliation after war, open borders, shared values, trust instead of mistrust.

My constituency on the Dutch border lives Europe day in, day out. Germany and the Netherlands generate a trade volume of well over 200 billion euros every year.

Commuters, tradespeople, businesses, trainees and students no longer encounter border controls.

This is what Europe looks like when it succeeds.

But is it succeeding everywhere? Is Europe still on the right track? And when did Europe begin to believe that more rules automatically mean more Europe?

The rest of the world builds factories while Europe fills in forms

The world is changing at breathtaking speed. The United States is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in future technologies through the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. China is promoting key industries with a determination that we can and must criticise – but cannot afford to ignore.

And Europe? Europe is still creating rules. Since the start of the last legislative term, well over 10,000 legal acts have been published. At the same time, the European Commission has itself admitted that businesses are suffering from too much bureaucracy. It has therefore promised to cut administrative burdens by 25 percent, and by 35 percent for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The promise was right. But what does reality look like? Yes, there are the omnibus acts. Chapeau! Things are being simplified.

But simplification and deregulation are not the same. In parallel, hundreds of legislative initiatives were launched in the last term – from the Green Deal and digital regulation through to new due diligence, sustainability and reporting obligations. That does not add up.

That cannot be our ambition. Europe does not need less Europe. Europe needs a Europe that once again focuses on its strengths.

Europe’s strength is its ‘Mittelstand’

The European Mittelstand is not a marginal issue; it is the powerhouse of our continent. The vast majority of companies in the European Union are self-employed, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Germany leads the way: more than 99 percent of all companies are Mittelstand businesses.

SMEs in Europe employ around two thirds of all workers in the private sector. They are Europe’s innovation engine – not the administration. The Mittelstand develops ideas. The bureaucracy develops forms.

Yet increasingly, companies are investing not in new machinery or new markets, but in documentation, compliance and reporting obligations. Large corporations can set up their own departments for this. The family firm in a rural area cannot. Nor can the skilled trades. Nor can start-ups.

Many Mittelstand entrepreneurs now tell me: “We are not looking for subsidy programmes. We are looking for freedom to act.”

Because every additional rule costs time, money and nerves. Above all, it costs trust. The prevailing assumption now seems to be that every entrepreneur is under general suspicion from the outset.

Yet the real problem is no longer the individual rule; it is the sum total. It is not the famous last drop that makes the barrel overflow. At some point the barrel is simply full.

Europe needs to put the brakes on regulation

That is precisely why Europe now needs a moratorium on new burdens.

No new burdens for businesses until the existing ones have demonstrably been reduced. Not merely announced. Not calculated on paper. But measurable.

From now on, every new law should follow a simple rule: for every new burden, at least one existing one must be removed.

This is not an attack on good rules. On the contrary. Good regulation is measured and proportionate. It sets objectives, but it does not prescribe every single step.

Reporting, documentation and disclosure obligations therefore need to be subjected to systematic scrutiny. Anything that creates no added value has to go.

Today, the courage to cut is more important than the courage to write.

The next wave of regulation is already rolling in

In fact, what should be happening now is a clear-out. Instead, new burdens from Brussels are already being announced.

The planned Digital Fairness Act will bring additional information and transparency obligations. The Green Claims Directive would create new documentation requirements for sustainability claims. The announced Quality Jobs Act threatens a wide range of labour law requirements in a single legislative package.

On top of that comes the national implementation of the Pay Transparency Directive with new reporting obligations – particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. Or the EUDR (Editor’s note: EU Deforestation Regulation, the EU regulation on deforestation-free supply chains).

Each initiative pursues a comprehensible objective in itself. Taken together, however, they produce exactly what Europe’s businesses have long been suffering from: ever more obligations. Ever more evidence. Ever more documentation. Europe will not win any innovation race this way – at best, only the world championship in filling in forms.

Europe needs discontinuity

Europe must have the option of saying goodbye to legislative ideas.

There is an even more fundamental problem. What cannot be adopted in one legislative term often simply moves into the next – as if the world had not changed in five years.

That runs counter to any fresh political start. We therefore finally need a principle that is taken for granted in many parliaments: discontinuity.

Legislative projects that have not been adopted must, as a rule, lapse at the end of a legislative term. Anyone wishing to reintroduce them should have to justify them afresh. With up-to-date figures. With current impact assessments. With renewed democratic legitimacy.

Discontinuity would be far more than a procedural rule. It would be a change of political culture. A genuine new beginning forces politics to set priorities. That is exactly what Europe needs.

Dare to trust

Europe needs high standards. But high standards are not created by ever more micromanagement. They are created by trust.

Entrepreneurs are not adversaries. They are employers. Trainers. Innovators. Taxpayers. They deserve trust. Those who give them freedom to operate create growth.

And Europe must not further weaken itself. When member states then tighten European requirements even more – the so-called gold-plating – new competitive disadvantages arise. That is poison for the single market.

Back to the big idea

Robert Schuman wanted a Europe that brings people together, not one that keeps administrations busy. Europe is an idea of peace. An idea of freedom. An idea of prosperity.

This idea has opened borders. It has brought people together. It has turned neighbours into partners.

Together, both would send a signal: it would be a step back towards Europe’s true strength. Less nit-picking. More trust. More freedom. More Europe.

Gitta Connemann is a member of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). She also serves as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Administrative Modernisation. Connemann is also the Federal Government Commissioner for the Mittelstand.