Speaking from Nicosia, BusinessEurope president Fredrik Persson – who leads Europe’s largest confederation of employers and business federations – sent a clear message to the European Union.
In an interview with Phileleftheros, he sets out the challenges facing European businesses and urges politicians to move from words to action in order to strengthen competitiveness.
The interview with Fredrik Persson was conducted on the sidelines of the organisation’s presidents’ summit, hosted by the Cyprus Employers & Industrialists Federation (OEB) in Nicosia on 20–21 November 2025.
Against the backdrop of Cyprus’s upcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU, Persson examines the challenges for the competitiveness of European businesses, the need to cut regulatory burdens, trade relations with the United States, and the role of Cyprus and OEB within the European business ecosystem.
BusinessEurope held its Presidents’ Conference in Nicosia on 20–21 November 2025. What is the significance of this major event being hosted in Cyprus, both for the country and for the European business community?
BusinessEurope’s Council of Presidents gathers the presidents and directors general of BusinessEurope’s member federations. It is the General Assembly of BusinessEurope, which convenes twice a year to establish the positions to be advocated for by its 42 member organisations from 36 European countries on the strategic challenges confronting European companies.
This meeting comes at a crucial time for both Cyprus and the EU ahead of the start of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It represents an important opportunity to highlight the key issues for business ahead of the Presidency and for the leaders of our member federations to exchange views on how best to address these. When we speak with one voice for the European business community, we can have a greater impact in finding solutions to put the European economy back on track and strengthen the European Union.
What are your expectations from the discussions and outcomes of the Nicosia Presidents’ Conference, and how do you believe it can shape the European business agenda for 2026 and beyond?
A competitive European economy with strong European companies is a prerequisite to realising Europe’s security, green and digital ambitions. Giving clear signals that Europe is raising its game when it comes to the delivery of promised policy improvements during the future Cyprus Presidency is more important than ever. We hope that the united voice coming from our Council of Presidents will lead to a stepping up of these efforts.
How would you describe BusinessEurope’s relationship with the Cyprus employers’ organisations that are part of your network? In what ways do they contribute to your collective work?
OEB plays a crucial role both within BusinessEurope and in our engagements with key stakeholders, both at EU and on national level. They, along with all our national federations, provide a unique insight into how companies are doing on the ground and how companies in Cyprus are being impacted by decisions taken at EU level.
The technical expertise within our staff and members, combined with strong political messaging, makes us impactful in shaping the political narrative and actual policies.
From your perspective, what are currently the biggest challenges facing European businesses — economically, politically, and in terms of competitiveness?
Considering the current geopolitical situation, and in particular tensions in global trade, it is essential that Europe is united in defending its interests globally. We support the deal made with the U.S., even if it is far from ideal, because it allowed the avoidance of a damaging tariff escalation and provides a basis to continue the work needed to solve remaining issues in the transatlantic relationship. It is therefore important to refrain from seeking amendments that would undermine the EU-U.S. framework agreement. Trade diversification is also an essential part of the answer and swift ratification of the Mercosur agreement is a central element in such a trade diversification strategy.
Moreover, it is crucial that the EU accelerates its regulatory burden reduction programme. If we want to come anywhere near the twin regulatory burden reduction of 25% for all companies and 35% for SMEs, the simplification proposals that are on the table today have to be swiftly adopted and implemented. On top of that, we need a constant stream of omnibuses or similar burden reduction measures.
Looking back at your term so far, what do you consider to be BusinessEurope’s most important achievements in promoting growth, innovation, and job creation across Europe?
The most important achievement is definitely that competitiveness is finally back on top of the political agenda of the European Union. Since the beginning of my term, we have consistently highlighted that the high cost of doing business and the enormous red tape in Europe are major obstacles for European business to thrive, innovate and create more jobs in Europe.
Initiatives like the Competitiveness Compass, the Industrial Accelerator Act and the simplifications packages are promising. It was long overdue, but the clear target of the European Commission to simplify regulation and reduce administrative burdens by at least 25%, and 35% for SMEs in the coming years is an important step in the right direction. Now it is crucial that policymakers who have talked the talk also walk the walk and rapidly turn political promises into real relief that is felt by companies on the ground. This means, in particular, bringing down energy costs and bureaucracy, accelerating permits, and facilitating investments and innovation in Europe.
In your view, what changes or reforms are most urgently needed in Europe to strengthen growth and competitiveness in the coming years?
A key internal reform that the EU must undertake is to deepen the Single Market. We need full implementation of the Single Market Strategy an ambitious Single Market roadmap to 2028, to remove barriers to cross-border trade and investment, including when they stem from gold-plating the implementation of Single Market rules in member states.
We must also focus energy and climate policies on enabling conditions to meet Europe’s ambitions. European businesses remain fully committed to climate neutrality by 2050. However, targets alone will not deliver the desired results. There must be incentives and a business case to invest in decarbonisation. Securing access to affordable energy, mobilising massive public investments, building the necessary infrastructures, and creating lead markets will be key. Companies also need a stable and technology-neutral regulatory environment that avoids overregulation and fosters innovation.
BusinessEurope’s vision is to make Europe the most competitive, sustainable, and prosperous place to live, work, and invest. What concrete steps are being taken to turn this vision into reality?
To support EU institutions in their much-needed simplification efforts, BusinessEurope has put forward 68 concrete proposals across 3 key areas which create disproportionate compliance costs: administrative burdens (including reporting requirements), excessive adjustment burdens and cross-border regulatory barriers. Businesses operating in the EU need swift action across all these three pillars of burdens.
We followed up these 68 proposals with a position paper on how to effectively simplify the EU digital rulebook. The EU has become a global leader in digital legislation. Yet with leadership comes responsibility to ensure that regulation does not undermine European companies’ competitiveness and innovation in Europe.
As Europe seeks to strengthen its competitive position in an increasingly interconnected world, it must make rules work – clearly, simply, and predictably.
As a recognised social partner, BusinessEurope works closely with the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the Council. How do you assess your cooperation with these institutions, and what could make this dialogue even more effective?
To ensure that economic and social progress go hand-in-hand, it is important to simultaneously increase productivity and employment. For decades, EU Member States could not do so. When hourly productivity was growing, the number of hours worked per capita was decreasing. As a result, the EU GDP has stagnated at 70% of U.S. per capita GDP over the last 30 years. Addressing this weakness is essential to strengthening our economy and having the ability to face the security, demographic, green and digital transitions facing Europe.
BusinessEurope is engaged in a bipartite dialogue with the European Trade Union Confederation and, in this social dialogue at EU level, our aim is to ensure that the social partners actions contribute to improving the functioning of labour markets across Europe.
In the advocacy work that we do towards the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council, we also defend the autonomy of social partners’ negotiations in Member States. For example, BusinessEurope is pleading for the introduction of a presumption of compliance for companies adhering to collective agreements in the recently adopted European directive on pay transparency. We fully support the gender equality goals pursued, but the provisions of the directive are unnecessarily burdensome. Introducing a presumption of compliance for companies adhering to collective agreements would make sense, since job classification established through collective agreements already generally applies objective and gender-neutral criteria.
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