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The 1 Self-Inflicted Wound That Killed EU’s Future · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is Europe finished?
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: The EU produces almost nothing the rest of the world couldn't live without, argued global tax expert Jimmy Sexton in a recent IMI column.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: But he says there's one specific terminal reason why.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll walk you through his case, what Europe's own cybersecurity chief admitted out loud, and what his argument means for anyone considering a Plan B inside the EU.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: In Sexton's view, Europe's addiction to rules is no secret.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Brussels regulates things that don't need regulating.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: They mandated USB-C charges across the block.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: They capped the wattage of vacuum cleaners.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of caps, they went out of their way to ban detached bottle caps.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: When they do regulate something worth regulating, like personal data privacy, Sexton says they make a mockery of it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Take the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was meant to protect consumers online and shield the identities of beneficial owners of companies.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But according to Sexton, it has protected almost nothing.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The EU itself argued in court that transparency was more important than privacy.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the practical result of the bloc's flagship privacy law, in Sexton's reading, is one thing.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: An annoying cookie banner that pops up on every website you visit.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You click accept all without reading.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone clicks accept all without reading.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's his read on the pattern.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Brussels regulates aggressively.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: The regulation fails, and the regulation becomes the new normal anyway.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now ask yourself a simple question.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: What device on your desk came from the EU?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: What app on the phone you're holding was concepted, designed, and architected in Europe?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: What cloud service does your business run on?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like most people, the answer is none.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The smartphone in your pocket is American or Chinese.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Its operating system, also American.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The cloud platform running your email, your storage, and your work tools is almost certainly Amazon, Google or Microsoft.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: None of them European.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sexton makes the point bluntly.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: In his framing, the world's third largest economy provides nothing the rest of the world couldn't live without.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a striking claim about half a billion people, decades of investment, and trillions of euros in GDP, and the people in charge appear to be aware of the gap.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Europe's own cybersecurity chief said it out loud.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: The strongest piece of evidence in Sexton's column came from inside the EU itself.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Miguel de Bruca, who runs the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium, openly admitted that storing data fully inside Europe is no longer possible.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, we've lost the whole cloud.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have lost the internet.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That admission didn't come from a critic of the bloc, it came from one of its own cybersecurity directors.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: For Sexton, that's not merely a setback, but a verdict.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like Brussels hasn't noticed.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: According to a Wall Street Journal report from late last year, the EU was proposing to roll back some of its digital laws.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Less regulation, more innovation, more investment, less dependence on US tech.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Was Brussels admitting its rules had failed again?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, the rollback never happened.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Teresa Rivera, the European Commissioner for Competitiveness, said that EU competitiveness depends on not rolling back rules.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The leadership cannot agree.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: One faction admits the rules failed, another is doubling down.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: For Sexton, that contradiction is the issue.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So why exactly can't Europe catch up?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't Brussels see what De Bruchia said out loud?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: According to Sexton, it comes down to the people running Europe being disconnected from reality.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Most have never run a business or even held a private sector job.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are professional politicians and lifelong bureaucrats, regulating industries, he says, they have never worked in and don't understand.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: They focus rather on how they believe things should be, not on how things actually are.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sexton contrasts this with the competition.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The US is ahead because American capital and talent move freely toward what works.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: China is ahead because the state directs enormous resources towards strategic capabilities at speed.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Europe, by his account, is governed by committees that take years to agree on the wattage of a vacuum cleaner.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: By the time Brussels finishes the consultation, the rest of the world has shipped the product.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can't regulate your way to innovation, he argues.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Legislation won't build a competitive cloud industry, and no rule has ever mandated the next breakthrough in artificial intelligence into existence.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: By the time the rules are written, the technology has moved on.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: The talent has left, and the capital has gone elsewhere.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is terminal, he argues, because the elite refuses to recognize it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So where does his argument leave you, as someone possibly weighing Europe as part of a residency tax or business strategy?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: A few things to keep in mind.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Europe is not collapsing tomorrow.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The third largest economy still has enormous wealth, world-class universities, and some of the most attractive special tax regimes available, including Italy's flat tax, Greece's non-DOM program, and Malta's lesser-known program.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are still good reasons to spend time in Europe, but the regulatory direction has been consistent for years, and that direction is unlikely to reverse soon.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not you accept Sexton's full diagnosis, the takeaway is clear.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Europe is increasingly a place to live well, not a place to build the next generation of companies.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly the kind of question we built IMI sovereigns to answer.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: In a private online community, investors and entrepreneurs share what they're doing about all of this, including tax reduction tactics, citizenship portfolios, mobility strategies, and investment opportunities across the globe.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you are spending any meaningful time in the EU, even for pleasure, you should know exactly how Brussels is now tracking visitors.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is another topic yet critical to your privacy.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the video on your screen now where we cover the EU's new facial recognition system, which has already flagged 4,000 Visa overstayers since launch.
• 6:10
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• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We publish new analysis every single day to keep you abreast.