Sara Kelly is your eyes, ears and voice in Brussels and Westminster. Every fortnight she brings you the latest insights on policy changes, legislation and lobbying.
Since UKIP stormed the local elections a fortnight ago, Westminster has been in crisis.
Clearly there are concerns with voters about the political body that is the European Union. The Government has been forced by their backbench MPs to consider holding a referendum that will ask the public, should we be in, or out of the European Union?
London would be a lot quieter
While this isn’t going to be considered for a number of years, what would it mean for tech in the UK if we left the European Union today?
Well for one thing London tech would probably be a lot emptier. Many of the companies based here have Founders, colleagues, or investors who have come to the UK from outside of Europe.
Figures taken from the Campus survey shows that just at Campus there are 22 nationalities, with a strong presence of French, Italians and Germans just to name a few. I’m based on the 4th floor at Campus which I share with Startup Weekend and Seedcamp and the majority of desks are populated with people from across Europe.
They would no longer have the automatic right to come set up in the UK. They would have to go through the process of applying for visas. Another barrier that might drive them elsewhere and reduces our ability to compete for European talent with the US. These are people who have decided to set up their business in the UK. Providing jobs and contributing to the UK economy. Do we want to give them another reason to choose the US over the UK?
Anybody who has tried to apply for visas for India, Russia, or elsewhere will know this can sometimes be a painful process
Not only would London be emptier but if you wanted to attend a meeting or a conference in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, or anywhere in Europe you could need to organise a visa.
Anybody who has tried to apply for visas for India, Russia, or elsewhere will know this can sometimes be a painful process.
It’s not all rosy and perfect with the EU
That’s not to say it’s all rosy and freedom of movement and business is the only impact of EU membership.
Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to comply with the cookie law? No longer being members of the EU would mean we wouldn’t have to comply with some of the directives dreamed up in Brussels.
The EU is particularly bad at regulating technical measures rather than on principles.
We had the Cookie Law, we had ACTA, and now We’re seeing some of these problems cropping up again the the reforms proposed by Viviane Reding to the data protection directive. This includes the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ which has some serious questions over its feasibility and the cost of implementation. While well meaning in protecting consumer privacy they can often be difficult and expensive to comply with and without overall consumer benefit.
You might say, well if EU regulation is strangling tech businesses, rather than deciding about whether we should be in or out of the European union, we should be talking about how to change it so it works better for business.
It can be hard to get your voice heard in Europe
Anybody who has tried to have input into the European law making process will know it can be a nightmare. You have to fight just to get into the discussions, then take part in a lengthy process that takes years and can get very expensive going back and forth between Brussels.
During a recent round of discussions on ‘Licences for Europe’ I was the sole representative not only of European tech startups, but of any European based tech company. A severe oversight considering the discussions were all about how copyright works in a digital age.
We’re trying to change this through the Startup Advocacy Summit. We’re bringing together people who advocate on behalf of startups on policy issues, the Coadec’s of the world, to club together to have greater influence over the way the European Union makes policy. But that’s not going to happen overnight.
Whatever comes out of the debate currently happening around our membership of the European Union, it needs to happen soon. Yes, there needs to be change, but the most important thing for startups who choose to set up in the UK and contribute to the UK economy is that they, and their investors have stability.
image credit: wikimedia commons