@keber1:
Don't tell what you wrote in the first paragraph to any serious economist...
Precisely the richest countries in Europe are based on small businesses of private initiative. Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands,... They also have big companies and projects but not so much that the economy depends on them to a large extent. And precisely poor countries rely only on big projects (typically e.g. socialist or most post-socialist countries)
In this sense Belgium is a very instructive example. In the 19th century and up to WWII Wallonia was richer. The economy was driven by huge heavy-industrial complexes, mining, coal mining,... i.e. BIG projects. They contemptuously looked at the Flemings (who were half as industrially developed) as those poor lowland farmers. Well, after WWII it turned around. The industrial revolution lost its wings, post-industrial society began. Heavy industry, coal,... increasingly lost sense in favor of more ecological sources, services, tourism,... The Flemings, who weren't so burdened by the legacy of industry, quickly seized the opportunity and precisely with small businesses of private initiative exploited the golden 50s and 60s and then overtook the rigid Wallonia, which bet everything on big cumbersome projects that failed one after another in post-industrial society. That's why they couldn't redirect as quickly as the Flemings, who basically started from scratch. Today we know Flanders is much richer than Wallonia, which only started recovering some 10-15 years ago.
And why talk about Belgium, we have an equivalent example at home but on a much smaller scale: Zasavje mining areas, once the pride of the economy today collapse with a bunch of unemployed. And across Europe: Ruhr area (Germans have partially managed to rehabilitate it again with small projects, even doing tourism offering visits to closed factories, mines, industrial museums,...), French regions Nord and Lorraine, English Midlands,...
And what would save Zasavje today? Exactly that: promoting small businesses, private initiative, services, tourism,... Same Velenje and Šoštanj. Ours are doing some TEŠ. God help, instead of investing that in faster construction of power plants on Sava.
But I agree with the second paragraph: protect this, that,... you have to get I don't know how many papers and environmental and spatial permits,... Yeah, that's exactly what deters small entrepreneurs and also foreign investors.
But it's interesting how this Bohinj 2864 project got all the necessary permits so quickly. It just started being talked about. Someone above said the only problem left is with two owners (by the way, when they build something important in Austria, they first expropriate all owners in that area(!), so construction can start immediately and then negotiate compensation in courts).
Interesting that here they immediately took care of all the papers, but one small private guy can *f* around 5-10 years with bureaucracy and still question if he'll succeed.