Draghi: road map for competitiveness by June
Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi emphasises the importance of taking immediate decisions to revive the European economy and tackle global challenges. At the Budapest summit, the 27 will transpose the Draghi Report into a text of political commitment vague enough to get everyone to agree. But the theme of themes is: what now with Trump?
from our correspondent in Budapest Beda Romano
2' min read
2' min read
BUDAPEST - Meeting at an informal summit in Hungary, EU heads of state and government are to approve a declaration aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the European economy. The former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, author of a well-known report on the subject, took the opportunity to emphasise that the election of President Donald Trump in the United States cannot fail to be a poke in the side of Europe to address now historical weaknesses.
"There are big changes ahead. I believe that what Europe can no longer do is to postpone decisions,' explained the former Prime Minister on Friday 8 November, on the sidelines of a summit at which he will present his report. 'As you have seen over all these years, many important decisions have been postponed because we were waiting for consensus. The consensus did not come, all that came was lower development, lower growth, now stagnation'.
"We will have to negotiate in a united spirit"
.Referring to the next US administration, the former premier went on to note: 'Little is known about what exactly will happen, but one thing seems more certain than the others, and that is that Donald Trump will boost innovative sectors and protect traditional industries, which are precisely the industries where we export the most to the US. So we will have to negotiate with our American ally, in a united spirit, in a way that also protects European producers'.
The text as political commitment
Meeting here in Budapest, the heads of state and government are expected to adopt the former central banker's report in a handful of pages in a declaration negotiated in recent weeks at diplomatic level. The text is a political commitment, sufficiently vague to guarantee a compromise among the member states. The Draghi report was welcomed as a whole, but there are disagreements on individual chapters, as many diplomats explained in recent days.
In his report, Mario Draghi emphasises the importance of joint financing to boost the competitiveness of the European economy. Speaking to the press today, the economist pointed out: "What the report says is that there are many other decisions that can be taken without immediately addressing the issue of common public financing. Also in his report, the former premier speaks of needs amounting to €800 billion per year.
