By: Olga Králíčková
April 8, 2025 4 min read
The new EU Council Directive to create a more integrated and digitised Single Market is bringing administrative relief, especially for SMEs. The countries now have two years to implement it and in three and a half years it will enter into force.
The BRIS system, i.e. the database of business registers, is intended to ensure better accessibility and generally more quantity and credibility of data on companies. Data commonly available in the commercial register, such as name, registration number, registered office, etc., should now be available in one place and free of charge for all Member States.
Transparency is also often mentioned in connection with the proposal. The aim is to link BRIS with the Beneficial Owners Register Interconnection System (BORIS) and the Insolvency Register Interconnection System (IRI) without changing or circumventing the rules and limiting access to the information available in these systems.
A unique European identification code (EUID) assigned to each company will be used for cross-border communication between registers. It will consist of elements that will, among other things, enable identification of the Member State of the register, the national register of origin and clearly identify each individual company.
The rules on intra-EU language barriers will also provide administrative relief. Not all documents will now need to be translated, the uniform registers will ensure easier identifiability of data and, for example, certified translations will only be required for constitutive acts and statutes if this is justified by the purpose, for which the document is to be used.
One of the main objectives of the proposed measures is to facilitate the cross-border expansion of SMEs, in particular by removing or reducing formal requirements. The proposal introduces an EU digital company certificate and an EU digital power of attorney and applies the “once only” principle, under which companies would not be obliged to submit their own data entered in their respective national business registers to the registers of other Member States. These documents often have to be legalised (apostilled), which will no longer be required.
The modifications are intended to result not only in easier administrative work but also in related savings for SMEs, which the Council estimates at around EUR 437 million per year.
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