POLICY RECOMMENDATION 6: e-Ustartup
#e-u Startup: A unified, simple, digital, and fast track to incorporate your #business
Problem addressed
In comparison to other regions of the world, the EU is lacking in innovation and a strong start-up culture. Incorporating a company able to operate in all EU countries implies going through a highly complicated administrative process. There is a need to simplify said process and a chance to turn a problem into an opportunity.
Policy Recommendation – Idea and Goal
In short: Creating a unified, simple, digital, and fast track to incorporate a start-up in the EU with a European legal personality.
Establish a single, digital, and easy pathway to incorporate a start-up in the EU with a European Legal Personality. Following an online registration, the legal procedure should be limited up to five days. The start-ups would only need to pay a flat tax during the first five years in order to foster growth. Labor contracts would remain on the national level and based upon respective national laws. This fast and unified system would allow for a flourishing start-up environment in the EU, fostering innovation while reducing bureaucracy.
The role of Germany and Italy
Germany and Italy share a similar economic structure and they both have many SMEs. Therefore, the pilot project should ideally start there. On the basis of a bilateral agreement, both countries could be best practice examples of fostering innovation and a stronger start-up culture.
POLICY RECOMMENDATION 7: LENS – European Social Progress Tracker
Lost hope to find the region of your life? Don’t despair - LENS will guide you!
#dataissexy #EUregions #socialprogress
Problem addressed
In short: Poor social cohesion and regional disparities in Europe.
The EU continues to suffer from low social convergence, both between and within member states. This happens even though EU-level regional and cohesion policies have existed for decades. What is more is that the pandemic appears to have widened — and worsened — social inequalities. Policy options are limited, apart from the launch of the Next Generation EU package, which includes a number of social elements and novel sources of funding.
Policy recommendation – Idea and Goal
In short: Implement a European social progress tracker (based on SDG-indicators) with data down to NUTS 2 +3 level to use for European Semester and facilitate matchmaking of regions for cooperation.
The recommendation aims to provide more specific and substantial evidence for targeted policy recommendations within the European Semester. The envisaged open access platform increases efficiency of EU funding allocation as it encourages regional cooperation and best practice exchanges while providing readily available and yearly updated information. By providing more granular data, LENS enhances transparency, more accurate tracking of social policy progress and increases accountability.
The role of Germany and Italy
The addressed policy problem is highly relevant for Germany and Italy as both suffer from stark and persistent regional divides (North-South in Italy; East-West in Germany). They could therefore have a higher interest using the platform and in becoming pioneers in data recording through transnational partnerships. The platform’s matchmaking effectively addresses regional disparities between regions in Italy and Germany.
POLICY RECOMMENDATION 8: ESI-HUB – The European Social Innovation Hub
The future is #social! Italy and Germany join forces to create the first #EuropeanSocialInnovationHub #ESI-HUB
Problem addressed
European social systems face many challenges, which can be addressed through social innovation. Limited visibility and funding for social innovations in the EU hampers this. Social innovations can be understood as social practices to address societal challenges.
Policy Recommendation – Idea and Goal
In short: Creation of the European Social Innovation Hub to better address societal challenges through social innovations.
The creation of the ESI-HUB – The European Social Innovation Hub aims to connect social innovation stakeholders in order to exchange best practices for social innovation. Through promoting the development, transfer and scaling-up of social innovations across EU member states, the hub would allow to better tackle societal challenges. Furthermore, it could make existing funding instruments better accessible and organize joint events, such as innovation challenges, hackathons, and public dialogue. The Social innovation hub could become a community of social innovators, funders and policy-makers who would boost the transfer of social innovations on the short-term, having the potential of becoming an established mainstream policy tool on the long-term.
The Role of Germany and Italy
Both Italy and Germany have strong existing social innovation activities and advanced welfare, health, and education systems in need of social innovation. Therefore, both countries are ideal to bring together their strong existing social innovation ecosystems and become pioneers of the re-design of their social systems.