European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy, on October 3, 2025. [EPA]
On October 3, 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a sweeping agenda at Italian Tech Week: a “28th regime” for startups, an “AI First” strategy, and a Savings and Investment Union to unlock Europe’s €1.4 trillion in household savings.
Then came inflated numbers. Von der Leyen claimed Europe now has four supercomputers in the global top 10. It has two. She stated only 24% of European household wealth is invested in equity versus 42% in the US. The actual figure is 35.9%. When achievements get doubled and gaps get tripled, narrative precedes evidence.
The Savings and Investment Union promises “deep capital markets” but ignores structural failures. American startups list on unified exchanges – the NASDAQ or NYSE. Europeans face Euronext, Deutsche Börse, and the London Stock Exchange. Von der Leyen proposes no unification, preferring to push retail investors into high-risk venture capital rather than creating liquid public market infrastructure.
The disparity is stark: EU venture capital will reach $12.17 billion in 2025; the US: $171.3 billion. Even successful European startups often list in New York, returning capital through American infrastructure.
The “28th regime” – a uniform regulatory framework alongside 27 national systems – has merit. But American companies already navigate European fragmentation successfully. The real barriers lie deeper: risk culture, patient capital, talent retention.
What made Silicon Valley successful was mission-driven federal investment creating markets. European startups struggle because Europe doesn’t set tangible missions. Horizon 2020 distributed €80 billion; the Human Brain Project consumed €600 million – producing papers but no transformative breakthroughs.
The “AI First” strategy lacks a coherent approach. Billions flow toward infrastructure with no preference for transparent, open models over proprietary black boxes. Open-source models align with European values – democratic accountability, bias verification, strategic autonomy – yet receive no priority.
The strategy’s glaring omission: workers whose jobs AI will eliminate. France raised the retirement age to 64, Germany contemplates 67. Governments mandate longer work while championing technologies rendering those years redundant. No labor transition framework exists.
Europe claims climate leadership while proposing resource-intensive infrastructure. Training one large language model consumes as much energy as hundreds of homes annually. Self-driving cars perpetuate car dependency when resources could fund public transit and high-speed rail.
Europe succeeded before differently. Airbus challenged Boeing through patient, mission-driven investment. CERN’s World Wide Web came from publicly funded research. These shared clear missions, patient capital, and prioritized strategic autonomy – elements absent now.
How is this translated into Greece’s context?
Greece loses talented graduates while struggling to scale startups. Yet it possesses unique advantages: world-class research institutions like NCSR Demokritos, strong technical universities, diaspora networks, and strategic positioning at Europe’s energy and digital crossroads.
Rather than awaiting Brussels’ fragmented programs, Greece could pioneer mission-driven innovation nationally:
Mediterranean energy hub: Become the renewable energy gateway between Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East by 2035, creating demand for advanced energy storage, smart grid technologies, and green hydrogen production – pulling Greek startups into real markets with government as anchor customer.
Climate resilience and wildfire prevention: Greece’s devastating wildfire seasons demand achieving zero wildfire-related deaths and an 80% reduction in burned area by 2030. This requires integrated systems combining satellite monitoring, AI-powered early detection, autonomous aerial firefighting drones, and predictive fire behavior modeling. Greek startups could pioneer remote sensing, real-time risk assessment, coordinated robotic response, and forest management optimization. The mission extends to climate adaptation: drought-resistant agriculture, water management, and ecosystem restoration. Government procurement creates immediate markets while positioning Greece as a Mediterranean leader in climate resilience – solutions desperately needed across Southern Europe, California, Australia, and other fire-prone regions globally.
Digital health leadership: Leverage aging population challenges by ensuring every Greek over 65 receives AI-assisted preventive healthcare by 2032, demanding transparent medical AI, remote monitoring, and integrated health platforms – creating testbeds for solutions exportable across aging Europe.
Defense technology autonomy: Greece’s geopolitical position creates opportunity for indigenous defense innovation: autonomous naval systems for Aegean patrol, integrated air defense networks, swarm drone technologies for border monitoring, and cybersecurity platforms. Defense procurement represents patient capital with guaranteed demand – the Hellenic Armed Forces as anchor customer. This generates massive civilian spillovers in AI, robotics, sensors, and secure communications while building strategic autonomy. Israel demonstrates how smaller nations facing security imperatives build world-class technology sectors exporting globally.
These missions require institutional reform. Universities must commercialize research through reformed IP frameworks. Public procurement must prioritize domestic innovation over lowest-bid foreign solutions. Patient capital mechanisms – not diffuse subsidies – must support companies through growth stages.
Most critically, Greece must retain talent by offering meaningful challenges. Young engineers leave not just for higher salaries but for ambitious projects. Mission-driven innovation in climate resilience, defense, energy, maritime and health offers work that matters, backed by patient capital, solving problems Greeks understand deeply.
Europe’s failures provide Greece’s opportunity. While Brussels optimizes capital flows without clear purpose, Greece could demonstrate that smaller nations with focused missions and institutional coordination can build innovation ecosystems generating broadly shared prosperity. The alternative is a continued brain drain and dependence on solutions designed elsewhere for problems Greeks could solve themselves.
Xenophon Krokidis is the founder and CEO Scienomics, a materials discovery company.