Europe ready and flexible, businesses and people are not

Stories / possible developments

Europe flourishes due to the competative work environment.
Margers and acquisitions as companies wish to impose their technology standard on the industry.
Oracle purchases SAP to obtain strong foothold in the lucrative European market.
Foreign investment is at an all time high as the EU economy grows.
Fight for greater share of the marketplace decreases prices.
Russia joins the European union as high liberization of the job marketproduces more jobs.

Arjan

The EU finally fully opens it labour market to the new 10 former east-european member states
the use of new cheap labour and highly motivated workers in the "old europe" has a positive effect on its people and the european economy in general, causing strong growth
talks about membership are started again with croatia, serbia (after the extradiction of Karadzic and Mladic), bosnia and herzegovina, turkey, the ukraine, and georgia
russia is allowed in during important round tables of eu and national officials
the fast movements in the mobile market cause different strategic decisions of european telcos regarding mobile standards
this is being enhanced by the takeover of telenor and teliasonera by NTT docomo who know has almost the entire scandinavian market and plans to expand to the rest of europe using new advanced japanese hsdpa-based technology
after the surprising election of a new liberal president following all kind of electoral struggling in the usa, and the expansion of the bolivian-venazuelan-cuban socialist pact in latin america the EU plans to create a more integrated foreign policy, creating the stepstone to more integration
although many new workers from eastern europe come to work in the west, western workers (apart from the entrepeneurs) are hesistant to leave their home place, while not being enforced to do so by the static organisations as well

Jasper

A new road-pricing (pay-as-you-drive) law is being accepted by many members of the EU which causes decrease in car usage throughout Europe.
After years of protest against nuclear energy by environmentalists, a new European law is accepted which prohibit the use of nuclear power throughout Europe.
As a direct result of the previous two factors the environment shows signs of improvement.

Dude XYZ

Employment regulation will change towards more flexible work, that can be carried out collaboratively at anytime and anyplace.
When people (businesses) are not ready there won’t be happening much in the area of the corporate workspace. Ultimately, corporations need evidence that a high mobile workforce and mobility will lead in doing better business (creating more shareholder value). Can corporations organise themselves around people that are working from anywhere, anytime, and will that increase work product quality, time-to-market, service quality, R&D, etc.? Because of all technological innovations the world already has become “smaller”, for the next years ahead the benefits of physical contact will also prevail above working from anywhere anytime.

Sander

EU forces companies to have a more 'mixed' workforce, resulting in companies having problems with cultural issues