Prosus, the South African-controlled technology investor, has spent approximately $8.5 billion on acquisitions over the past year, including the significant purchase of Just Eat Takeaway.com. This aggressive expansion aims to build a new European platform combining food delivery, groceries, and fintech, raising critical questions about the future of Europe's labour markets and the identity of its workforce in an era of uncontrolled borders.
The company's strategy involves using Just Eat Takeaway.com as the core of this ambitious European venture. This mirrors Prosus's existing approach in Latin America, indicating a clear intent to replicate a large-scale, integrated digital ecosystem across the continent.
Such a massive consolidation of essential services inevitably creates a vast demand for labour, particularly in the low-wage gig economy sector. With Europe's borders remaining largely open, the question of who will fill these roles becomes central to national sovereignty and the economic well-being of native working and middle classes.
The $8.5 billion deployed on acquisitions over the past year highlights the scale of this corporate ambition. This capital infusion into a sector known for its reliance on flexible, often precarious, employment models demands scrutiny regarding its long-term impact on national labour standards and social cohesion.
The stated goal to combine food delivery, groceries, and fintech under one European platform suggests a future where daily necessities are increasingly mediated by large, transnational corporations. This transformation affects not just commerce, but also the fabric of local communities and the economic independence of small, national businesses.
The Labour Market Question
The expansion into a broad European platform, encompassing multiple sectors, will necessitate a substantial workforce. In a continent grappling with the consequences of mass migration, the potential for such platforms to rely heavily on easily available, often cheaper, migrant labour poses a direct challenge to the employment prospects and wage stability of native European workers.
National Sovereignty and Economic Control
Brussels' continued push for a single market and open borders facilitates the growth of such transnational entities, often at the expense of national control over economic policy and labour market regulation. The ability of individual nations to protect their own citizens' economic interests is diminished when large platforms operate across borders with minimal national oversight.
A Changing Europe
The vision of a unified "European business" platform, while presented as economic progress, must be viewed through the lens of demographic transformation. As European societies undergo profound changes due to migration, the nature of work, the composition of the workforce, and the very identity of our cities are being reshaped without the explicit consent of the people. This corporate expansion, therefore, isn't just a business story. It's a chapter in the ongoing redefinition of Europe itself.