Things learned in 5 years of Journalism++

I've run a French company for almost a decade now. Their efforts to have a "European" company are nice, but perhaps naive.

The main reason to incorporate in a particular country is because you have employees there. You book the revenue in that country, charge VAT in that country, pay employees there, and pay taxes there.

When you incorporate in one country, but have employees in another one, it just makes life difficult for everyone.

For small companies, the simplest solution is to have "out of country" people be contractors. If the company gets large enough (2-3 people in a country), it's worth creating a subsidiary.

And yes, the subsidiary and parent have to exchange contracts, invoices, etc., just as if they were independent companies.

Europe just isn't set up to have an "EU" company, with "EU" employees. I don't even know what that would look like, as each country is in charge of it's own social programs, taxes, etc.