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This summer the European Union Director-General for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education & Youth Jean-Eric Paquet met with a group of Europe’s fastest growing innovative companies, referred to as ‘the unicorn group’. Mr Martin Valters, Co-founder of Latvian company Mintos, presented one of the key items on the agenda consisting of a proposal to introduce a flagship of the Pan-European sandbox. He presented an action-based outline detailing plans to make significant improvements to the unified European innovation ecosystem by speeding up the product-to-market duration.
During the meeting, organized by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission (DG R&I), the Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC), The Directorate-General joint Research Centre (DG JRC ) and the European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA) the progress of several projects initiated by ‘the unicorn group’ were reviewed and discussed to assess their feasibility, and explore how they can be turned into concrete actions that can help unleash Europe’s full innovation potential, while ensuring Europe’s tech sovereignty, green transformation, deep tech leadership, and innovation cohesion.
Spearheaded by startups like Skeleton Tech, Klarna, Blablacar, FacilityLive, Uipath and many other, the unicorn group proposed the implementation process of flagship projects in the coming years that will help Europe attain leadership in the future of innovation. Among them, Martins Valters of Mintos proposed a 4-point roadmap to execute the pan—European sandbox project over the next few years, set out to enable companies to test run new innovative products and services at a single harmonized EU-testing and standardization point.
The proposal follows a report presented at the previous Innovation Policy Group meeting. It was argued that the current EU market is fragmented with various regulations across each member state. This has left the EU behind competitors in other parts of the world who are able to test-out new products faster. It is targeted towards helping EU companies gain momentum and size, forestall the scourge of European companies struggling to compete and ultimately getting acquired by external competitors.
In the proposal, Mintos co-founder explained that a pan-EU sandbox, acting as a one-stop-shop for any company, would solve the problem since it would automatically enable businesses to offer innovative products and services throughout the entire EU (subject to conditions) once accepted into the framework.
“Europe needs a frictionless way for companies offering innovative services and products to test run new innovations quicker and be able to access the EU market as one common market,” said Valters, Co-Founder of Latvian startup Mintos, Europe's leading marketplace for investing in loans.
He continued, “We have to ensure that new product ideas can be tested at a single point, with the results and approvals applicable throughout Europe irrespective of where the company is located within the EU.”
“The fintech world is fast-changing and highly dynamic, in many cases, such delays might prove to be a death sentence to innovative ideas. A pan-EU sandbox would allow both businesses and individuals in the EU to enjoy much faster and unrestricted adoption of new innovative solutions,” said Valters.
One of the prerequisites for the implementation of the sandbox is agreeing on the areas and industries in which innovative companies should have access to the pan-EU sandbox.
The institutions and representatives of the companies present shared feedback comparing the new proposal to similar efforts that have been made in the past and possible aspects to consider for their implementation now. With significant support for the idea, the group looks forward to autumn to come back to the flagship project activities.
