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First, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued at Davos, economic strength starts at home \u2014 and \u201chome\u201d means national capitals. | Harun Ozalp\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\nFirst, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued at Davos, economic strength starts at home \u2014 and \u201chome\u201d means national capitals. Poland, Spain and the Netherlands are growing solidly, while Germany is stagnating, and France and Italy are continuing to underperform. What is seen as a European failure is actually a national one, as many of the most binding growth constraints \u2014 rigid labor markets, demographic pressure on welfare systems and fossilized bureaucracies \u2014 firmly remain in national hands. And that is where they must be fixed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to stop hiding behind Brussels.<\/p>\n
Next, Europe needs a trade policy that meets the moment. Product-by-product trade defense can\u2019t keep pace with the scale and speed of China\u2019s export surge, which is threatening to kill some of Europe\u2019s most profitable and innovative sectors. The EU must move beyond microscopic remedies toward broader horizontal instruments that protect its industrial base without triggering blunt retaliation.<\/p>\n
First, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued at Davos, economic strength starts at home \u2014 and \u201chome\u201d means national capitals. | Harun Ozalp\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
This is difficult, and it will come with costs that capitals will have to be ready to bear. But without it, Europe\u2019s core industries will remain under acute threat of disappearing.<\/p>\n
Moreover, trade defense must be paired with a rigorous industrial policy. The Green Deal remains the most plausible growth strategy for a hydrocarbon-poor continent with a highly educated workforce. But it needs clarity, prioritization and sufficient funding in the next EU budget at the expense of traditional spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cMade in Europe\u201d preferences can make sense \u2014 but only if they\u2019re applied with discipline. Europe must be ruthless in defining the industries it can compete in and be prepared to abandon the rest. That was the Draghi report\u2019s core argument. And it boggles the mind that the continent is still debating European preferences in areas like solar panels, which were lost a decade ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued at Davos, economic strength starts at home \u2014 and \u201chome\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3090],"tags":[15193,51,1395,6641,23433,1700,110718,54155,12921,6562,34065,1195,9890,33109,2129,14921,2443,6861,1201,6862,1399,6717,16,15,49],"class_list":["post-757253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asia-economy","tag-business","tag-china","tag-competitiveness","tag-economic-performance","tag-economy","tag-energy-dependency","tag-enrico-letta","tag-eu-budget","tag-eu27","tag-european-green-deal","tag-growth","tag-industrial-strategy","tag-mario-draghi","tag-mark-carney","tag-omnibus","tag-regulation","tag-single-market","tag-trade","tag-trade-agreements","tag-trade-defense","tag-transatlantic-relations","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116052241275756192","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757253","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=757253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}