RTL, a big pan-European broadcaster owned by Germany's Bertelsmann, might clamber back into the game.

ECONOMIST: Digital television

In time, though, smaller companies may falter against big institutions with global brands and pan-European ambitions and capabilities.

ECONOMIST: Banking for the well-off

That is why, on June 26th, some 40 big companies banded together to found the Pan-European Pension Association.

ECONOMIST: European pensions

One or two big firms have tried to encourage a pan-European retail-investor base.

ECONOMIST: European capital markets

In 2012, the European Science Foundation launched its Farquest programme, aiming to map out a pan-European quantum research structure in which quantum biology plays a big role.

BBC: Perfume chemist

Deposits would be guaranteed on a pan-European basis and there would be a fund to wind down big banks.

BBC: Spain: Resisting a bailout

The company started a largely on-demand new airline, again called Pan Am, that flies from airports on the fringes of big cities, like those in New Haven, Conn. and Trenton, N.

FORBES: The Little Airplane That Could