Also in today's issue of The Space Review, Bob Clarebrough asks if the EU is capable of allowing a space tourism industry to develop in Europe:

...consider this: the Gettysburg Address ran to 264 words, the Declaration of Independence required 1,332, yet the European Union regulations on the sale of cabbages need 23,826 words. It’s hard to believe that commercial space operators will enjoy the light-touch regulatory approach adopted so far by the FAA. Call me intuitive, but my gut tells me that launching stuff into space might need even more complex rules than trading vegetables—or am I missing something?

...Gaining approvals and funding to construct a spaceport, transportation links, hotels, and housing for workers in a pristine wilderness will take forever. But the last word will come from Britain’s Health and Safety Executive. This government department recently advised the police not to pursue escaping criminals in case they endangered the felons’ safety! When the HSE writes the rules for space operations their weight will exceed any rocket’s lifting capacity.

Ah, but that's not the way it actually works. Of course any entrepreneurs would be dead on arrival. However, there will probably be some kind of heavily-subsidized state champion "Eurotourismespace" or something like that - that will either not actually have to comply with the safety regs, or will be so subsidized that the compliance costs are transparent to it.

It won't matter. Any European efforts will be merged into the Muslim space program.

There's are interesting examples of European (I don't know how much that can be used as an overarching term in this topic btw, but I'm speaking of my northern homeland) companies having moved quickly and developed new technologies in short time, from deep sea submersibles to medical sensors. But the examples which I now remember, have been rather big companies or foundations having steady revenue streams and lots of cash then expanding to new venues by founding subsidiaries.

I guess it boils down to the hardness of getting money for risky startup businesses over here.

Except nowadays if it's some "mobile" anything.

Come to think of it, in USA, DOD has played a not insignificant role in some of the newspace companies' life too, so it's not just all rosy private enterprise.
Xcor at least I believe survives much on government money.

There are some angel investors like Paul Allen, John Carmack and Elon Musk also.

Much of the alt space sector in USA is struggling without investors, and shows really slow progress. It's of course better than nothing to do some prototypes and have web pages, but if it doesn't move on from there for years, the end result is still pretty much the same...

Perhaps the investments will pick up with time.

Nice article, but, alas, the cabbage reference is an urban legend that's been alive for years....

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/govmemo.htm

Although it may be hard to tell the difference between the two documents, the EU regulations on the sale of cabbages are quite brief compared to the proposed Constitution for Europe which contains over 60,000 words.

I didn't get deep into it in the article, but the major problem for Europe is this: The welfare state is now unsustainable. Either massive tax increases will be needed to support it or radical reforms will be needed to shrink it. Since the latter option will result in huge, continent-wide riots in the streets, the former is more likely which will wipe out any chances for innovative entrepreneurs to get started. If you were a Euro politician would you rather subsidize AirBus and secure a 100,000 votes or support an Armadillo-type startup where all the voters would fit into an SUV? America's supreme strength is the kid tinkering in the garage - in Europe he'd be taxed for having a garage.