> Looking at the EU market: Does it work? Is that your reading?
The EU single market isn't really single yet - and that is in my views the biggest obstacle to innovating start-ups being able to scale. If you want to release EU-wide you have to make sure you also comply to 27 national jurisdictions. It's hard. I work at financial services, and we really have to carefully grow and release per country. The UK would have been nice, but being even more different, for the company of our size they are a total no-go.
But I do think it works. The European countries with strong workers' protection are very attractive destination for knowledge immigration, they make a good chunk of top-10 in Human Development Index, and the whole of top-10 if you adjust it by inequality (so if you look at median at not an average).
> I am sure there are ways to try and force companies, but I would suspect it's fairly complicated politically
Less complicated in the EU than basically anywhere else in the world.