This is John Batchel, speaking with colleague Joseph Sternberg, editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

He writes political economics column. He's in London.

Describing the incredible Brussels effect, once upon a time was seen as magic and advantage for the European Union.

Anything but the Brussels effect, what does it mean?

What could it possibly have meant at the time as they came up with this?

Here's Joe to, you will not believe this the first time you hear it.

Here's Joe.

Yeah, John, this is so stupid that listeners are going to have to trust me when I tell them that serious people in Brussels really truly believed this.

The term for it was the Brussels effect.

And the theory was that, you know, Europe could craft its own unique set of economic regulations

for the 450 million person consumer European marketplace.

And that economic heft would be so big that, you know, there would be advantages for

European companies that would know how to work within those rules.

Total nonsense.

The opposite has been true. You know, there have been a lot of reports that have pointed out that the number of large companies that have grown in Europe under this approach to regulation in the economy vanishingly small. So, I mean, you can now wander around Silicon Valley and not avoid tripping over a new

billion dollar company here or there, barely any of them starting up in Europe at the moment

because of this excessive regulatory approach. And I think that what's changing is that people

in Brussels are finally realizing that that Brussels effect is phony.