The risk of a readjusted Draghi report

The strength of the Draghi Report, made public on 9 September, lies in the unity of its diagnosis of Europe's difficulties and the consequent proposals to be implemented. The Report denounces the obsolescence of the European Union's production model and the associated disappointing productivity dynamics. Hence the need for massive innovative investments with a low environmental impact, to be financed through the mobilisation of private financial wealth and the creation of a recurring central fiscal capacity, which will transform the EU economy and avoid its agony.

Governance, industrial policy, regulation and the European budget are therefore inseparable components of the Report. The risk is that European policymakers and member state governments will select the less radical components of the proposals and hide the others in the drawer, thus displaying a generic adherence to the diagnosis but betraying - in fact - the Report's fundamental contents. To use the expression formulated by one of us (see Buti's article of 6 October on these pages), the risk is the implementation of a 'Draghi à la carte'.

One way to assess the extent of this risk is to examine the mission letters that the Commission president sent to the 26 candidate commissioners. The week that elapsed between the publication of the Report and the sending of the letters (17 September) is, on the surface, too short a time to take on board Draghi's message; in reality, the Commission's services made a significant contribution to the drafting of the Report, drafts of which were already on President von der Leyen's desk before the summer. It is therefore relevant to ask which and how much of the Report's contents were included, either with direct references or with policy indications in line with the proposals, and which were instead ignored in the mission letters. In this regard, instead of dwelling on the common content of the 26 letters, which outlines general objectives, it is useful to examine the part that specifies the competences of each commissioner, i.e. his or her portfolio. In this second part, the letters contain the details that, once fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, should substantiate the concrete actions for the realisation of the programme that led the European Parliament to give von der Leyen a second mandate.

Direct references to the Report are numerous. The letter to French candidate Stéphane Séjourné recalls the need to open a period to support productivity, innovation and competitiveness through industrial policies that are at the heart of the Report. In the letter for one of the most articulate portfolios (that of Spain's Teresa Ribera), the constraints on European productivity growth are referred to by attributing them - as in the Report - to over-regulation and high energy prices. In that same letter, as in at least three others, there is therefore an insistence on the implementation of the Green deal through decarbonisation and 'circular economy' processes.

On industrial policy, the reference to the Report becomes more specific. Von der Leyen insists on the need to implement at least three of Draghi's recommendations: to transform the current programme for important projects of Community interest (Ipcei) into a more linear instrument to support innovation in strategic sectors, also allowing for Community contributions; to define action plans for the automotive sector and its allied industries; and to use the Commission's expert groups to actively involve market players in important decisions. In two further letters, the president again follows the path of the report by: combining international trade and security in a single portfolio; calling for aggregations in defence procurement to exploit economies of scale, standardise tools and lead to more effective cooperation with NATO.