The European Union was built on grand ambitions—peace, prosperity, and unity. Yet beneath the surface of its single market lies a maze of 27 national systems: 27 tax codes, 27 sets of consumer laws, and 27 bureaucracies. Businesses hoping to sell across borders must navigate this tangled web at great cost. To fix this, EU leaders are thinking about a new idea called the “28th regime” (Euractiv, October 16, 2025).