Thoughts on the European Union from the perspective of a young founder

As a European citizen, I think we need to look at the current situation clearly.

I’m from Hungary, a country where the previous administration became well known for strongly criticizing the EU. But this post is not about that political debate.

I want to talk about the part I do live every day: technology, startups, and building something from Europe.

Let’s take AI as the most obvious example.

AI is probably the new industrial revolution happening in front of us. The world met ChatGPT, and suddenly everyone understood that this was not just another tech trend. This was a shift.

And Europe’s first instinct felt like: regulate it.

Don’t get me wrong. Regulation matters. Safety matters. Privacy matters. Trust matters. These are European strengths, and we should not throw them away.

But sometimes it feels like Europe tries to administrate the future before it has built enough of it.

That is the problem.

While the US and China are producing many of the companies, models, infrastructure, and platforms that shape the market, Europe is often trying to catch up through rules, committees, and frameworks.

Yes, we have promising companies. Mistral is a real European AI company. There are great founders here. There is talent here. There is capital here.

But the uncomfortable truth is this: Europe is not short on smart people.

Europe is short on startup speed, risk appetite, founder-friendly structures, and the belief that young companies should be treated as partners, not as problems to be managed.

The same pattern appears in consumer tech too.

How many truly global European social media platforms do we use every day?

BeReal was one of the few recent examples worth mentioning. And I genuinely wish good luck to teams like Monnett trying to build in this space.

But most of the platforms we use are American. Most of the tools we build with are American. Most of the AI products we talk about are American. In many SaaS categories, the market leaders are not European either.

Even in the space where I’m building, link-in-bio industry, the biggest player is Linktree from Australia.

This is not an anti-America post.

Actually, it is the opposite.

I love what America has managed to build around startups, ambition, venture capital, universities, networks, and the idea that a young founder with an unreasonable plan might actually be worth backing.

I haven’t had the chance to visit the US yet, but it is definitely one of my goals.

Europe should not copy everything blindly.

But we should be honest enough to learn from what works.

We need more than grants.

We need density.

We need a European Silicon Valley mindset.

We need something with the energy, speed, and network effects of Y Combinator.

We need easier cross-border company building.

We need investor-friendly structures.

We need less fragmentation.

We need leaders who understand that startups are not a side topic of the economy. They are one of the ways the future gets built.

EU Inc. sounds like a step in the right direction. A unified, founder-friendly company structure could genuinely help. But as always in Europe, the question is not only what we announce.

The question is how fast we actually execute.

I don’t believe in a United States of Europe.

But I do believe Europe needs to cooperate much better when it comes to startups, innovation, AI, and technological independence.

Because right now, if a European founder wants to build something truly global, it often feels like the default path is to look outside Europe first.

For capital.

For company structure.

For customers.

For inspiration.

For validation.

That should bother us.

Not because we should hate the US.

But because Europe should not be dependent on others for every major technological layer of the future.

Our leaders need to put ego aside, admit where we are behind, and act with urgency.

The talent is here.

The ambition is here.

The question is whether the system around us is willing to move fast enough.

I’m still optimistic.

But optimism without execution is just a nice speech.

Europe does not need another decade of talking about innovation.

It needs to become one of the best places in the world to actually build.

I’d genuinely love to hear how others see this.

If you live in the EU, does it feel the same from where you are? And if you’re outside Europe, how does the European startup ecosystem look from the outside?