{"id":104415,"date":"2026-08-26T03:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T07:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=104415"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:59:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:59:40","slug":"regulating-away-small-company-benefits-in-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/regulating-away-small-company-benefits-in-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Regulating away small company benefits in the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cl\u00e1udia Ascens\u00e3o Nunes<\/a> discusses yet another example of regulatory capture, as new European Union regulations will choke off business opportunities for small companies to the benefit of big companies and multinationals who can absorb the costs of the new environmental regulations:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, the European Commission estimates that the Single Market has increased the European Union’s GDP by 3\u20134% and created 3.6 million jobs<\/a> since its creation. A study by Bertelsmann Stiftung estimated that integration increases European citizens’ incomes by an average of about \u20ac840 ($974) per person per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet the benefits created by this integration, and the freedom that made these benefits possible, began to come under threat on August 12, 2026, quietly and through an apparently harmless packaging regulation.<\/p>\n

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation<\/a> (PPWR) will force sellers, both European and foreign, to comply with a complex set of rules that may be manageable for large brands but suffocating for small businesses.<\/p>\n

The most problematic requirement is that sellers shipping packaged products to an EU country where they are not established must appoint a local authorized representative. That representative will act on behalf of the seller before that country’s recycling authorities. The representative must register the company in the national Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, system, file annual reports on the packaging the company places on that market, and charge a service fee of between \u20ac200 ($232) and \u20ac500 ($580)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The process of appointing a representative in one country is both bureaucratic and expensive. Doing so across several countries can become impractical for small sellers, who lack the scale to spread these fixed costs across a large volume of sales, especially since the PPWR does not provide a volume-based exemption.<\/p>\n

Several businesses are already announcing the suspension of shipments to other EU countries or disabling shipping options to the EU altogether. The German company Copiaro, for example, suspended shipments<\/a> to other EU member states while continuing to ship to European markets such as Switzerland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, which are outside the EU’s regulatory framework.<\/p>\n

We are therefore returning to something resembling the old national markets, with barriers to entry.<\/p>\n

The entire model of cross-border trade for small businesses risks being undermined in the name of environmental protection. Yet if larger companies, which produce far more packaging waste, are the ones best able to absorb these costs, we are facing a contradiction. Packaging regulations can shield large sellers from competition by smaller businesses, creating a more closed and concentrated market.<\/p>\n

Europe may become greener by becoming poorer. European entrepreneurship is being strangled, and small business owners are paying the price.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cl\u00e1udia Ascens\u00e3o Nunes discusses yet another example of regulatory capture, as new European Union regulations will choke off business opportunities for small companies to the benefit of big companies and multinationals who can absorb the costs of the new environmental regulations: Today, the European Commission estimates that the Single Market has increased the European Union’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,831,65,62,84],"tags":[316,337,266,661,1022],"class_list":["post-104415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-business","category-environment","category-europe","category-government","tag-borders","tag-eu","tag-protectionism","tag-regulation","tag-regulatorycapture"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ra7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104416,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104415\/revisions\/104416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}