Strasbourg, 17 September 2024
On Tuesday, Mario Draghi outlined his blueprint for improving Europe’s competitiveness through closer cooperation in core areas and massive investment in shared objectives.
Mr Draghi, author of a report on European competitiveness requested by the President of the European Commission, said that the EU needed to focus on three crucial issues: closing the innovation gap with the US and China; developing a joint plan to link the goal of decarbonisation with increased competitiveness; and boosting Europe’s security and reducing its dependence on foreign economic powers.
Maintaining the European way of life will rely on improving competitiveness, and improving competitiveness requires closer cooperation and integration between Europe’s nations, Mr Draghi said.
A fit-for-purpose competitiveness agenda would require annual funding of between EUR 750 – EUR 800 billion for projects whose objectives were already agreed upon by the EU. Some of this money could come from private sources, but some would also need to be secured through public investment, including by new common debt issued specifically to fund key joint projects, Mr Draghi said.
In a debate following Mr Draghi’s address, many MEPs agreed with his analysis that the EU economy must urgently change course. The EU should focus, they argued, on competition and innovation in key industries, along with more public and private investments in social, green and digital transformations. Some MEPs called for greater sovereignty and freer markets, and stressed that fighting climate change sabotages the EU economy. Others observed that growth is compatible with clean innovative technologies and social investment, to help citizens to adjust their skills.
Renew Europe: Call to future EU commissioners – Draghi’s plan must be your bible!
Strasbourg, 17 September 2024
Europe’s competitiveness is languishing. Productivity crises, huge difficulties and barriers to business and industrial growth, increasing loss of household purchasing power and an accelerating ageing of our population. For this reason, the Draghi report presented today in plenary is a wake-up call for the EU to shed its state of innocence and take action in the face of the loss of competitiveness of global players such as China, India or the United States.
We embrace that this report mirrors several of Renew Europe’s proposals, such as innovation, better-integrated capital markets, speeding up digitalisation, decarbonisation as a source of growth, bold defence and reducing barriers for the single market, among others.
Following Von der Leyen’s presentation of the candidates for the College of Commissioners, we call on them to make Draghi’s plan a core priority without any delay in order to kick-start European Competitiveness by turning Draghi’s report into concrete legislative proposals.
MEP Morten LØKKEGAARD (Venstre, Denmark’s liberal party), Renew Europe Vice-President, said:
“Draghi’s report portrays a European economy unable to unleash its full potential due to the huge market fragmentation and lack of strategic reforms, which puts severe strains on our competitiveness, discourages business growth and blurs us in the face of other major global players. Without a firm commitment to innovation, better-integrated capital markets and a deepening of our internal market, it will be increasingly difficult to adequately invest in the growing priorities list of the Union, from energy security and climate change to defence, industrial competitiveness and health. It is time to act and go hand in hand in this transformation with citizens and businesses”.
MEP João COTRIM DE FIGUEREIDO (Iniciativa Liberal, Portugal), Renew Europe Vice-President, declared:
“Our businesses and investors are being swept by a tide of bureaucracy and often restrictive or inconsistent European regulations. It is essential that the new European Commission makes growth the keystone of its actions. Europe does not need to produce new legislation every day. It needs to simplify processes and cut the red tape as much as possible. This is the only way to play in the league of the big global players. And, as Draghi makes clear, we have no time to lose”.
MEP Christophe GRUDLER, (Mouvement Démocrate, France), Renew Europe’s ITRE coordinator, stated:
“A large part of the report are explicit previous demands of Renew Euurope: strategic autonomy, more innovation and less burden. Draghi’s report aligns with our longstanding positions calling for prioritizing the re-installation of Net Zero industries in Europe, reducing regulatory burdens, ensuring affordable energy and skilled labor. All has to come simultaneously or we will fail. There is an uphill challenge ahead that will require strong and courageous political decisions. Renew Europe should sides with this ambition”.
Source – Renew Europe Group (email)
ECR Group: The Union must limit legislative and regulatory activity
Strasbourg, 17 September 2024
The ECR Group sees Mario Draghi’s report, presented today to the European Parliament, as confirmation that continuous introduction of restrictive regulations and administrative burdens, especially over the last five years, have done nothing but further weigh down industry and hinder the ability to be competitive. The European Union must learn to limit itself, so that entrepreneurial initiative and civil liberty are not stifled.
In his speech, ECR Co-Chairman Nicola Procaccini said:
“For years we have been calling for common sense in the pursuit of a just and shared goal such as environmental conservation.
“We have to come back to the realisation that environmental conservation, as well as social inclusion policies, are a privilege that only prosperous and dynamic economies can afford.
“We believe that we need a self-limitation of European legislative and regulatory activity. Today as yesterday, we believe in innovation, in technological neutrality, in the free market. We believe in human beings, who, if left free to pursue their own happiness, make the world grow.”
Mr Procaccini’s speech reads in full:
Thank you President,
talking about competitiveness today in this Chamber is right, and it is late. I thank President Draghi for his valuable contribution of analysis. I only regret that it comes after, or rather because of, the mistakes made during a political season, the last one, dominated by the red and green lefts.
For years we have been calling for common sense in the pursuit of a just and shared goal such as environmental conservation. For years we have fought against measures that appeared furiously radical and short-sighted looking at the international geopolitical framework.
The result of those mistakes is all in the Draghi report. An abrupt, heavy, but not unexpected loss of competitiveness. Not matched by the benefit to the planet that we would all like. 2023 was the year with the highest global CO2emissions ever, despite the fact that they plummeted in the European Union.
We are the only major region in the world to have introduced a significant price on its CO2 emissions. Which translates into higher production costs and the price of the end product, within a market that is increasingly global, but also increasingly uneven in its starting conditions.
It has already been said: European companies face electricity costs 2-3 times higher than the US, not to mention China. The price of natural gas is even 5 times higher than in the US.
Of course, with big investments we will still be able to change course, but if the EU continues to self-sabotage its economy, well, it will be like emptying the sea with a teaspoon.
We have to come back to the realisation that environmental conservation, as well as social inclusion policies, are a privilege that only prosperous and dynamic economies can afford.
Even this morning, in the conference of presidents, I happened to hear words from the left that betray a feeling of annoyance towards economic competitiveness. As if it were something to be stigmatised, to be contained, to be sacrificed on the altar of environmentalism. Something sinisterly similar to the concept of ‘happy degrowth’ that we had to deal with a few years ago. It’s socialism coming back in through the window after having been shown the door in the last century.
On the contrary, we believe that we need a self-limitation of European legislative and regulatory activity. Today as yesterday, we believe in innovation, in technological neutrality, in the free market. We believe in human beings, who, if left free to pursue their own happiness, make the world grow.
Source – ECR Group (email)