Europeans are strangling innovation – why doesn’t the EU step in?

Instead of blocking internet-driven innovation, the European Union should be encouraging it, says Matthew Lynn.

If you want to order a taxi in Berlin or Frankfurt, don't bother looking at your smartphone. Fancy hiring a film or buying a book in France? Don't bother trying to do it online. The French have hit Amazon with a special tax designed to prop up local bookshops, while online broadcaster Netflix has been threatened with another tax to try to slow down its expansion.

The European Union is meant to be about enforcing open markets and free competition across the continent but the fact is, the EU seems increasingly feeble when it comes to forcing countries to level the playing field for new technologies and more and more tolerant of small-minded, local protectionism.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.