The Point

The Draghi Report the (unheeded) answer to Trump

Trump's America has no intention of coming to our rescue. And this can also be a good thing if only it will serve Europe to gain the self-awareness it has not yet been able to find

6 November 2024

Mario Draghi . REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo

2' min read

In all likelihood, the Draghi Report on Europe's competitiveness, which was to be thoroughly examined in Budapest by European leaders, will be blacked out.

First of all by the positioning that the different European interlocutors will take with respect to the re-election of Donald Trump. And it is already clear that the European Union of states and governments is about to repeat old mistakes.

Beyond the phrases about cooperation between Europe and the US, this is demonstrated by the phone call between Scholz and Macron, who promised to act in close coordination, more than before. If this - as it seems - means imagining the usual Franco-German traction Europe, it really is a mistake.

And it is precisely the Draghi report that denounces this: because it is the first time in fact that a European document has also been dialectical towards the historical American ally.

The precondition of the Report is that the whole Union should act in the protection of its continental interests, in the pursuit of a common capital market, of a financing system entrusted to continental issues of Eurobonds, of new colossal investments in technology (from digital to aerospace) in which Europe is lagging behind, and in common defence, whose potential is considerable.

Draghi writes: "Europe's core values are prosperity, fairness, freedom, peace and democracy in a sustainable environment. The EU exists to ensure that Europeans can always benefit from these fundamental rights. If Europe is no longer able to provide them to its citizens - or if it has to exchange one for the other - it will have lost its raison d'être.' This is what is really at stake for Europe caught in the competition between the US and China.

With a twist: Trump's America has no intention of coming to our rescue. And this can also be a good thing if only it will serve Europe to gain the self-awareness it has not yet been able to find.