National Bureaucrazy

LinkedIn blog post, 27/05/2025, by Sven Franck (en français , in Deutsch)

09:00. Email from the 🇸🇮 citizen registry. Five months after applying for a residence permit, I'm asked to provide a copy of my European Health Insurance Card. Ok, but... the destination email address doesn’t work. I guessed it correctly at the 2nd, but the auto-reply says my message went to spam because of the registry reference number. Cliffhanger ...

10:00. Frustrated call to 🇫🇷. After three months with no answer to my question on how to exchange an A1 form for an S1 form for signing up with the Slovenian health insurance, I hope for an answer while on hold. Only to find out: it can only be done by post and I should include an electricity bill in the envelope as proof that I actually live in Slovenia. Sure.

11:00. Unlocking the PIN of my ID card at the 🇩🇪 embassy so I can use NFC and my ID in the customer portal of the German pension insurance to read an important message. A lot of loops to jump through to finally learn from the important message, that address changes can only be done in written with the attached form – which, however, cannot be displayed online. Of course.

Bonus from a week ago: driver’s license renewal in 🇫🇷. After applying in September 2024, I received a message that my file was incomplete – missing: "the other document". Naturally, the portal only allows file uploads, not questions to be asked, so what "the other document" actually is remains a mystery. And: uploading the wrong file 3 times and your renewal-procedure is rejected. I take the risk and upload a blank document with the question of what "other document" refers to.

Why am I writing this? My employer is currently moving the company headquarters to Asia because we are bureaucratising our economy in Europe to death. Whether Slovenia, France, or Germany, everyone talks about reducing bureaucracy and digitisation, but reality and the departing industries tell a different story.

And what is the EU 🇪🇺 doing? Does "single market" mean EU-wide uniform digital processes for residence, health insurance, pensions? Maybe also for tax returns? Building permits? Company registrations? That would be nice – because "United in diversity" surely wasn’t meant to refer to bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, we’re nowhere near. Today’s Europe means neither economic integration nor simplification, but instead more sand in the gears. And when scrapping environmental regulations and consumer protections is sold as omnibus bureaucracy reduction, it’s high time to start working on the Europe of tomorrow. #jumpstartEU