I had the privilege to meet a number of youth groups this week from around Europe and was amazed at the problems that they face in just starting a business.

In the UK, if you want to start a business, you have a number of options. The first and easiest is to be self employed by just registering with HMRC (government revenue, http://www.hmrc.gov.uk) which takes about 10 minutes online. Then you just keep them updated using the same online portal.

The second way is by starting a business, which again takes 10 minutes but you have to pay to register the company, this is through Companies House, http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ and costs around £15. Again you keep up to date online using the interface provided.

In both cases you provide final year accounts using a PDF submission process.

Across the EU, the average time to start a business is 13.3 days (2012 Figures). However, when you look at countries like Spain the average time in 2003 was 114 days and has now come down to 28 days. So things are changing fast. Poland currently takes 32 days, but it’s not about the time taken but the bureaucracy involved. (Take a look at this amazing comparison website http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-business ) For young Entrepreneurs this is a major issue as a mistake at this stage may lead to major costs later on.

So what is the best practice?

Singapore has one of the best business setup environments in the world and its provides “A modernized business registration system should have all procedures online, requiring that permits applications should be online and transparent, allowing for general collateral when getting credit, requiring detailed disclosure for investors, taking all tax management and payments online, creating a single window for trade across borders, and creating a specialized court division to enforce contracts.”

Given that Entrepreneurs within Europe can move where they want to start, maintain or grow their business, we should be creating a system which allows clustering to occur to build these businesses. If you see that its best to be in Romania for bio-tech then “go and be part of this”, should be the moto.

Also given that the high growth high technology business can transfer assets within minutes from one business to another, most of which are virtual, the only thing stopping them moving to the best location is the bureaucracy involved in closing that business. Living in a global economy means we can move around, its better that way for large and small businesses. I must give credit to Francesco Maurelli for this.

So maybe we need a way to allow businesses to move around Europe just like our people, as we all know business is about people.