There Can’t Be Competitiveness Without Ownership
The Case for Introducing Employee and Steward Ownership Models as Part of the 28th Regime for Innovative Companies
The Case for Introducing Employee and Steward Ownership Models as Part of the 28th Regime for Innovative Companies
As the return of power-based geopolitics exposes Europe’s structural vulnerabilities, a single question increasingly underpins the EU’s competitiveness, strategic autonomy and security agenda: who owns Europe’s productive assets? In this policy paper, Kosta Juri argues that real, sustainable competitiveness rests on ownership — and that as strategic technologies, start-ups and local SMEs slip under external control, often via US-based asset managers and private equity, Europe risks losing not just its ability to compete but its ability to control its own fate. The paper makes the case for two practical, market-friendly tools to keep European businesses European: employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), which enable workers to buy out retiring owners and address the looming succession crisis, and steward ownership, which separates control from profit to protect a company’s long-term mission. Pointing to emerging models in Slovenia, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, it argues these models should be placed at the heart of the EU’s 28th Regime for Innovative Companies — and sets out concrete steps, from a harmonising directive to dedicated financial instruments, that the EU should take without delay.
Kosta Juri is the Operations Director of the Institute for Economic Democracy and a researcher at the Centre for Organisational and Human Resources Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. At the Institute, he oversees the smooth implementation of non- profit projects and works on international advocacy and policy development. Kosta holds a bachelor’s degree in International and Diplomatic Studies from the University of Bologna. He continued his postgraduate education at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he earned a master’s degree in European Political Economy. He joined the Institute in 2021 as a researcher. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of the Institute’s
Published by the European Liberal Forum. Co-funded by the European Parliament.