If you are not worried about the world's premier regulator, why not?

The Washington Post is the latest venerable publication to point out that the European Union (based in Brussels, Belgium) is fast becoming the world's premier regulator. While our grey climate may not make for the warmest of holiday destinations, Brussels is clearly a place where business needs to be in force.

Legislation proposed by the European Commission and amended by 27 national governments and 785 directly elected Members of the European Parliament set the rules of the game for goods, services, workers and capital across a market of nearly 500 million consumers. This rule book was estimated to standard at around 80,000 pages only a few years ago. Increasingly, the EU is also exporting its standards. Indeed, one of the arguments made by our legislators for the tough new chemicals laws mentioned in the Post article was that they would become de facto global standards. It seems to be proving to be the case both for this particular legislation and for EU legislation in general.

Perhaps it is the zeitgeist at a time when military might has been proven to not always be a trump card,  but the Post is not alone in noticing the rise of a new regulatory superpower. The Economist did a great piece on the same subject last year, a bunch of US academics over a Brown University have surveyed the impact of the EU on global standards for electronic goods and even Tom Freidman in the New York Times has lamented that the Chinese follow European automotive standards not US ones.

Of course, many US companies have representations in Brussels towards European Union decisionmakers and Amcham EU does a great job of bringing them together to push for more regulatory convergence.But for those that are not in Brussels, can you afford not to be? For those that are already here, one has to wonder if we were to compare the resources at the disposal of corporate representations in D.C. with those in Brussels, where one would find the bulk? I fancy not talking to the regulator with the most influence over global regulations.