ACT | The App Association Disappointed by Commission Announcement that 28th Regime Will Be Directive, Not Regulation

BRUSSELS – The European Commission’s 2026 Work Programme, published today, reveals that the awaited proposal for a ‘28th regime’ as an optional EU-wide company form for startups and scaleups will take the form of a Directive rather than a Regulation. This decision marks a significant shift from earlier expectations and risks undermining the Commission’s own ambition to build a ‘bolder, simpler, and faster’ Union and foster Single Market integration.

Mike Sax, founder and chairperson of ACT | The App Association, an international trade association for app developers, entrepreneurs, and small and medium-sized tech enterprises (SMEs), released the following statement:

‘Europe’s innovators and founders need the legal certainty and the ability to grow within the Single Market. That’s what a Regulation provides. A Directive means 27 different national transpositions, preserving the very fragmentation that the 28th regime was meant to solve.

‘The European Union cannot afford another missed opportunity. A Directive would only hold Europe’s founders back’, Sax concluded. ‘We urge the Commission to reconsider this choice and deliver a true Regulation, one framework, fully harmonised, for the benefit of all European startups’.