Twenty C-levels from the European Tech Alliance (EUTA) members gathered in Brussels for the EUTA CEO Forum. Over the two days, they held high-level exchanges with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, Commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis, Wopke Hoekstra and Michael McGrath, Directors-General Anthony Whelan (DG Competition) and Kerstin Jorna (DG Internal Market), and Member State representatives from France and Lithuania.
The message from European tech leaders is clear: empower European tech companies to scale at home and they will compete anywhere. The EU’s simplification and competitiveness agenda must move from ambition to action on the ground.
The CEOs leading the Forum represent companies serving more than one billion users — from Vinted, Allegro, Zalando, Bol, OLX and Cdiscount in commerce, to Booking.com, Trivago, Omio, FREENOW and Just Eat Takeaway.com in travel, mobility and delivery, to Stripe and Revolut in fintech, and Docplanner, The Stepstone Group, Hellowork, Dailymotion, AirHelp, Arrive and Too Good To Go across services and the circular economy.
The following can be attributed to Adam Jay, EUTA President and CEO of Vinted Marketplace:
“Today, Europe’s tech CEOs have one shared message: empower us to scale at home, and we will compete anywhere. There must be no threshold on ambition, only on bureaucracy.”
“European tech companies devote up to 30% of their internal resources to regulatory compliance, and one in three European founders has considered starting their business elsewhere. Today, we navigate a jungle. We need to get to a puzzle that fits together.”
“The Digital Omnibus is a real opportunity. The three GDPR clarifications it proposes, on the definition of personal data, legitimate interest for AI training, and a single entry point for breach notifications, must be preserved. But Article 88b would hand the consent architecture of Europe’s digital ecosystem to a handful of browser gatekeepers, exactly the players the Digital Markets Act was designed to constrain. It should be deleted.”
The following can be attributed to Anna Mazur, EUTA Chair of the Board:
“Every barrier we lift inside Europe is one less obstacle for European companies competing. This CEO Forum is about turning the One Market. One Rulebook. One Future. ambition into a workable agenda, created by the people building European tech every day.”
The following can be attributed to Victoria de Posson, EUTA Secretary General:
“European tech companies don’t need protection. They need smart enforcement of rules and a fair level playing field. Simplification is not a favour to industry. It is what lets European companies compete globally and offer European alternatives, embedded in EU values, for European consumers.”
