Hardly anyone turned up at the press conference in Milan a month ago to hear Michael Diekmann, chief executive of Allianz. The subject matter seemed to have put people off: Allianz, a humdrum German insurance group, was to become change its statutes to become a “European company”, or Societas Europaea, using legislation passed by technocrats at the European Commission. that took effect a year ago.

Yet the event was portentous. Allianz’s change from an Aktiengesellschaft, or AG – Germany’s version of a publicly incorporated company – into an SE is potentially far-reaching and could set an important precedent for peers. For the first time a big blue chip company was thinking of casting off its national identity and rebranding itself as a European entity, governed by corporate statutes common to the European Union’s 25 member states.