{"id":428953,"date":"2025-09-16T13:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T13:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/428953\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T13:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T13:17:12","slug":"eu-economy-falls-behind-global-rivals-due-to-complacency-warns-mario-draghi-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/428953\/","title":{"rendered":"EU economy falls behind global rivals due to \u2018complacency\u2019, warns Mario Draghi \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mario Draghi <\/a>has warned that the European Union\u2019s (EU) economic competitiveness<\/a> is on the retreat due to \u201cinaction\u201d by Brussels and national capitals, a year after the former Italian premier set out recommendations on how to close the gap with global rivals such as the US and China.<\/p>\n

Mr Draghi, who also served as president of the European Central Bank<\/a>, was tasked by the European Commission<\/a> to put forward a report on the bloc\u2019s competitiveness in September last year. His 383 recommendations were adopted by the commission as a framework for overhauling the EU economy, but just a fraction of them have been implemented since, with the rest mired in political disagreement and bureaucratic wrangling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne year on, Europe is … in a harder place,\u201d Mr Draghi told a news conference on Tuesday. \u201cOur growth model is fading. Vulnerabilities are mounting … and we have been reminded, painfully, that inaction threatens not only our competitiveness but our sovereignty itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToo often, excuses are made for this slowness. We say it is simply how the EU is built. Sometimes inertia is even presented as respect for the rule of law,\u201d Draghi added. \u201cThat is complacency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen, the commission\u2019s president, who asked Mr Draghi to write the report, admitted that the EU lacked \u201curgency\u201d in advancing the competitiveness agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur single market is far from complete … It should not be easier to find fortune across an ocean than across European borders,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need urgent action to face urgent needs. Because our companies and workers can no longer wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU must be reformed to boost competitivenessOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She pointed to a still-pending overhaul of the bloc\u2019s merger rules and called on her competition chief, Teresa Ribera, to speed up the process. The lack of clarity on one of Mr Draghi\u2019s key recommendations has sown uncertainty and frustrated industry and executives, who are waiting for signs from Brussels before making investment decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have to advance the publication of the merger guidelines. I think it\u2019s now time to deliver\u201d, said Ms von der Leyen.<\/p>\n

\"\"What can we potentially look forward to in Budget 2026?<\/p>\n

Despite pledges to move quickly on Draghi\u2019s suggestions, only 11.2 per cent of his ideas have been implemented over the past year, according to the European Policy Innovation Council, a Brussels-based think-tank. At the same time, Europe\u2019s economy has continued to flatline, with the US economy expanding eight times faster than the EU\u2019s in the second quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

European officials have argued that Ms von der Leyen and national EU leaders have been distracted with averting a trade war with the US, keeping US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration<\/a> engaged on Ukraine and striking the right balance with China.<\/p>\n

But Mr Draghi warned that \u201cEurope\u2019s citizens and companies … express growing frustration. They are disappointed by how slowly the EU moves. They see us failing to match the speed of change elsewhere. They are ready to act, but fear governments have not grasped the gravity of the moment.\u201d \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mario Draghi has warned that the European Union\u2019s (EU) economic competitiveness is on the retreat due to \u201cinaction\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,2557,1699,135486,33109],"class_list":{"0":"post-428953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-commission","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-european-central-bank-ecb","14":"tag-mario-draghi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115214172236054830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}