Tronchetti Provera: ‘Europe must change its governance or it will be left out of the loop’
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“Unless governance changes, nothing will change.” For Marco Tronchetti Provera, the priority is political rather than economic. To return to growth and take its place at the tables where decisions are made, Europe must overcome the fragmentation amongst the 27 Member States, review the rules that hinder mergers in strategic sectors and establish a common defence policy.
The platform chosen by Pirelli’s executive chairman to issue his warning is the TEHA Forum in Cernobbio. Joining him in the discussion were Enrico Letta, EU Rapporteur for the Single Market, Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, and Will Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Planet.
The starting point is a contradiction that runs through the history of the Union. Europe, the entrepreneur points out, built its integration by pooling coal and steel. Today, however, it is a continent of 27 countries operating under different policies: ‘This makes no sense; it undermines competitiveness.’
From energy and raw material costs – which are higher than those of their main competitors – to the persistence of national markets that hold businesses back. An analysis already set out in black and white in Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness.
“Everyone agrees with Draghi and Letta, but nobody wants to change the system of governance,” he observes. It is in this difficulty of translating a shared diagnosis into common decisions that Tronchetti Provera identifies the EU’s structural limitation: ‘No one can make decisions for other countries’, he points out. As long as this mechanism remains unchanged, growth will also remain stifled.
