How Europe should avoid the fate of Ophelia

In her hit single “The Fate of Ophelia” Taylor Swift sings about the plight of the Shakespearean heroine and draws parallels with her own redemption from sadness and despair. Like Ophelia, Europe is drowning: in red tape, over-regulation and anti-business policies, if not melancholy.

This fate is rooted in the EU’s complex rule-making machinery and the proliferation of national compliance regimes layered on top of it. From labor law to data governance, each new directive and sustainability requirement tends to add procedural weight rather than simplify the operating environment. While some policymakers argue that such measures protect consumers and uphold social standards, the cumulative effect has been to slow investment, discourage start-ups and push innovation to more flexible jurisdictions such as the United States. For many businesses, particularly small and fast-growing firms, Europe’s regulatory density now represents a structural disadvantage rather than a safeguard.

The folly of CBAM

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a perfect example of the kind of initiative that should be scrapped on account of the negative economic, trade and political impact that it will have. This fundamentally flawed piece of legislation will hurt European business through higher prices. In parallel, EU competitiveness on the global stage will suffer as trade tensions will impact the EU’s global standing as a guardian of free, fair and open trade, as well as harming the Global South through the creation of unnecessary barriers. At the same time, the greater administrative burden and extra costs that will be a direct result of CBAM will have a large negative effect on SMEs. Commentators in Europe and abroad have rightly been critical of CBAM since its inception given that it risks undermining the EU’s industrial competitiveness and climate ambition at exactly the moment Europe needs to secure both. As a result, it is vital that the European Commission sends this harmful and anti-business piece of legislation to the guillotine.

Hindering the evolution of the future of work

When it comes to the future of work, the EU passed the Platform Work Directive in 2024 which ostensibly aims to improve working conditions for the 43 million Europeans involved in platform work. In reality, the legislation is little more than an empty framework that leaves all the important details on the presumption of employment and algorithmic management, for example, to national regulators to sort out. This opens the door to a patchwork of different legislative requirements across Europe and “gold-plating” at the national level: extra requirements and administrative burdens beyond what is mandated from Brussels. This will create unnecessary costs and burdens for businesses and citizens alike which will hinder the EU Single Market while reducing the ability of freelancers to make money when, where and how they want.

A fragmented and burdensome regulatory landscape for AI

In recent years, the European Union has taken significant strides in regulating artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic systems, notably through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), and the Platform Work Directive (PWD). While these initiatives reflect the EU’s ambition to lead globally on trustworthy AI, they also risk creating a fragmented and burdensome regulatory landscape.

The overlapping scopes and definitions, divergent reporting obligations, and uncoordinated enforcement mechanisms across these instruments threaten legal certainty, impose disproportionate costs on businesses — particularly SMEs — and undermine the principle of regulatory coherence central to the EU legal order.

For example, on the issue of automated decision-making and automated systems, the AI Act, PWD and GDPR all have different definitions of what they are. These divergent explanations create substantial uncertainty for digital platforms, AI providers, and data controllers, who must interpret and apply overlapping regulatory requirements to the same technologies. Alignment and harmonisation is therefore necessary.

EU Omnibus offers an opportunity

The new EU Digital Omnibus represents a welcome step towards streamlining and modernising Europe’s digital policy framework. By consolidating overlapping consumer protection rules and aligning them with the realities of online commerce and platform ecosystems, the initiative seeks to replace regulatory fragmentation with a more coherent, single-market approach. It promises clearer obligations for digital service providers and fairer outcomes for consumers, addressing long-standing gaps around transparency, misleading practices and data-driven advertising.

Equally importantly, the Digital Omnibus introduces a degree of predictability that businesses have long sought. Rather than facing 27 different interpretations of online fairness and consumer law, companies will benefit from harmonised standards and simplified compliance mechanisms. This should reduce administrative burdens and create a level playing field across the EU, supporting innovation while safeguarding users’ rights. If implemented pragmatically, the initiative could mark a shift from piecemeal regulation towards a more competitive, digitally confident Europe.

It is time to dig Europe out of its self-imposed grave and find a new path to jobs, growth and entrepreneurship free from bureaucracy and excessive red tape. This would represent the kind of resilience and comeback of which Miss Swift would be proud.