EU Inc (the 28th regime) · 2026/0074(COD)
Supports embedding employee ownership within the 28th Regime but wants it to include clear legal frameworks, tax incentives, and financing mechanisms to support employee buyouts beyond just innovative start-ups.
Include not only innovative start-ups and scale-ups but also established mature companies seeking succession solutions within the 28th Regime.
“The 28th Regime should not overlook the hundreds of thousands of viable businesses across Europe seeking continuity and community legacy.”
Feedback, 2025-09-30
Provide a clear, well-structured legal framework for employee ownership models within the 28th Regime to ensure legal certainty and prevent failure.
“The establishment of clear, well-structured EO models is therefore crucial. Poorly designed schemes risk failure, but international best practice provides strong lessons.”
Feedback, 2025-09-30
Recognize and embed employee ownership as a form of broad-based employee buyouts that promote inclusive and resilient ownership models.
“Employee ownership (EO) has proven internationally to be an effective succession tool and ownership model... ESOPs are leveraged broad-based employee buyouts of mature companies with stable cash flows.”
Feedback, 2025-09-30
Introduce tax incentives such as capital gains tax reductions for sellers and tax-deductible contributions to ESOPs to encourage adoption across the EU.
“Slovenia is introducing a five percentage point reduction in CGT for owners who sell to an ESOP, along with provisions to make ESOP contributions tax-deductible... Denmark will allow selling owners to defer CGT liability to the ESOP cooperative itself.”
EU-ESOP-guide.pdf, page 6
Support financing mechanisms including loan guarantee programs by public financial institutions to increase lender confidence in ESOP transactions.
“Loan guarantee programs provided by public financial institutions are essential to increase the confidence of commercial lenders in ESOP transactions. In Slovenia, discussions are underway about the development of a loan guarantee program through the EIB to support ESOP buyouts.”
EU-ESOP-guide.pdf, page 6
Open source underneath
WhoShapedIt is a thin layer on open-source packages. Star them, fork them, build your own micro.
Open-source context and state for AI: it keeps only what matters for the question.
In WhoShapedIt: Reads every lobby submission and position paper and each official text, cut into passages, and judges each passage against nine questions (who can use EU Inc, workers on the board, tax…), so every ask and every step is read on the passages that address it.
Open-source Svelte components for clean, accessible interfaces.
In WhoShapedIt: The status, the timeline, the theme picker, the camps of lobbies and the organisation pages.
Also built with SvelteKit · Vercel AI SDK · Zod