Günter Verheugen, EU enterprise commissioner, has announced plans to cut the burden of European red tape on business by 25 per cent, as part of a "political revolution" in which Brussels would break its addiction to legislation.

Mr Verheugen told EU lawmakers to abandon past ambitions to bind European countries together through harmonised regulations and instead to work together to put the legislative machine into reverse. "A 25 per cent reduction in the costs of bureaucracy for entrepreneurs would be good," he said. "It's an ambitious goal but it is not unrealistic."