EU, Mario Draghi presents his report on competitiveness
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former ECB and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi present the report on European competitiveness. The 400-page report aims to give the European Union new impetus, allowing it to overcome the structural brakes that have caused it to lose more and more ground to the United States and China. The document is divided into four chapters: productivity, reduction of dependencies, climate, social inclusion and recipes for individual sectors based on the ten main economic dossiers that concern the EU.
Watch the video of the speech of the former president of the ECB in Brussels
Draghi: “Radical change for the EU to continue to exist”
Europe’s fundamental values are prosperity, fairness, freedom, peace and democracy in a sustainable environment. The EU exists to ensure that Europeans can always enjoy these fundamental rights. If Europe is no longer able to guarantee them, it will have lost its reason to exist. The only way to address this challenge is to grow and become more productive, while preserving our values of fairness and social inclusion. The only way to become more productive is for Europe to change radicallyand”. Mario Draghi writes this in the introduction to his Report. Productivity, he underlines, “is an existential challenge for the EU”.
“Europe lacks focus. We articulate common goals, but we do not back them up with clear priorities and we do not support them with joint policy actions. For example, we claim to foster innovation, but we continue to add regulatory burdens to European businesses, which are particularly costly for SMEs. More than half of European SMEs cite regulatory obstacles and administrative burdens as their biggest challenge”, Draghi writes. “Europe is wasting its common resources. We have a large collective spending capacity, but we dilute it across multiple national and EU instruments. For example, we are not yet joining forces in the defense industry to help our companies integrate and reach scale. European collaborative procurement accounted for less than a fifth of defense equipment spending in 2022. Furthermore, We do not favor competitive European defense companies. Between mid-2022 and mid-2023, 78% of total procurement spending went to non-EU suppliers, of which 63% to the United States”, explains the former president of the ECB.
Draghi: “New common EU debt on the Recovery model”
“If the political and institutional conditions are present, the EU should continue – based on the NextGenerationEu model – to issue common debt instrumentswhich would be used to finance joint investment projects aimed at increasing European competitiveness and security”. This is stated in Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness.
Draghi: “EU needs double investment compared to Marshall Plan”
“The financial needs needed by the EU to achieve its objectives are enormous” and to achieve the objectives indicated in the Draghi report “they are At least 750-800 billion euros of additional annual investments are neededaccording to the latest estimates of the Commission, equal to 4.4-4.7% of the EU GDP in 2023″. This is stated in the report on competitiveness presented by Mario Draghi. “For comparison, the investments of the Marshall Plan in the period 1948-51 were equivalent to 1-2% of the EU GDP”, it continues.
Draghi: “EU decisions should be more by qualified majority”
“So far, many efforts to deepen European integration among Member States have been hampered by unanimity voting. All possibilities offered by the EU Treaties to extend qualified majority voting should therefore be exploited,” reads Mario Draghi’s competitiveness report. Qualified majority voting should be “extended to more areas”underlines the former Prime Minister, also hoping – in cases of stalemate – to resort to “enhanced cooperation”.
Draghi Report: “We need more EU on defense research”
The Draghi report recommends “increasing European funding” for defense research and development (R&D) and focusing it on “joint initiatives.” This approach could be developed through “new dual-use programs and a proposal for European defense projects of common interest” to organize the necessary industrial cooperation. “No single Member State can effectively finance, develop, produce and support all the capabilities and infrastructure needed to maintain leadership” in today’s most advanced technologies.
Draghi: “Countries must commit to sustainable debt paths”
“The issuance of ‘common’ assets on a more systematic basis would require a stronger set of fiscal rules that ensure that an increase in common debt is accompanied by a more sustainable path of national debt,” reads Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness. “The issuance of common safe assets to finance joint investment projects could follow existing models, but would need to be accompanied by all the safeguards that such a fundamental step would entail,” warns the former prime minister.
Draghi: “The EU should focus on innovation and reduce energy costs”
“The EU’s competitiveness is currently being squeezed from two sides. On the one hand, EU firms face weaker foreign demandespecially from China, and increasing competitive pressure from Chinese companies. The EU’s share of world trade is declining, with a notable decrease since the start of the pandemic. On the other hand, Europe’s position in the advanced technologies that will drive future growth is shrinking”. This is what Mario Draghi writes in the first chapter of his Competitiveness Report. “Europe is now facing three major transformations, the first of which is the need to accelerate innovation and find new drivers of growth.
Secondly, Europe must reduce high energy prices by continuing to decarbonise and move towards a circular economy. Third, Europe must respond to a world of less stable geopolitics, where dependencies are turning into vulnerabilities and Europe can no longer rely on others for its security”, are the three macro-objectives indicated by the former president of the ECB, who observes: “EU countries are already responding to this new context with more assertive policies, but they are doing so in a fragmented way that undermines collective effectiveness. in a fragmented way, which undermines collective effectiveness”.
EU: Musk, Draghi’s criticism accurate; less regulations needed
“Mario Draghi’s criticism is accurate. A thorough overhaul of EU regulations to eliminate unnecessary rules and simplify doing business in Europe would revitalize growth and strengthen competitiveness. Things should be legal by default, not illegal.” This is what Elon Musk, the American entrepreneur and owner of the former Twitter platform, wrote on X.
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