The old continent is steadily and alarmingly losing relevance in an increasingly complex world, a fact that cannot be ignored.
At the economic level, Europe’s decline in industrial production is not a mere blip on the radar. Eurostat’s latest statistics reveal a steady and alarming trend. In February, the block’s industrial production was 5.4 per cent lower than in the same month last year. This trend has evolved over the past few decades and demands immediate attention.
Politically, European countries are often ignored when major global crises erupt. The US, China and Russia are the superpowers influencing global geopolitical issues. In the EU and Britain, internal political bickering is a continuous reality alienating ordinary people from politics.
The traditional political parties of the centre-right and centre-left are adopting the populist model to endear themselves to an increasingly frustrated electorate. They promise anything that could win them votes and get them re-elected.
The current election campaign for the European Parliament reveals how disconnected traditional politicians are from the solutions that the EU needs to bring about a new renaissance in the old continent. It hurts to see how the pre-election narrative is evolving in the different member states.
So, what needs to be done to save Europe from geopolitical and economic irrelevance?
Mario Draghi, former ECB president and Italian prime minister, has just proposed one blueprint. Draghi has a few friends and many enemies, not least in his own country. Still, he is one of the few high-profile public figures with a clear view of making Europe relevant again.
Draghi has just given an insight into his much-anticipated report on the bloc’s competitiveness, which will be published at the end of June. In a conference on European social rights in La Hulpe in Belgium, he said: “Europe must undergo radical change to remain competitive in the face of China and the United States’ refusal to play by the rules of international trade.”
In a style that is not offensive but laser-sharp and articulate, Draghi goes further. He says: “In a benign international environment, we trusted the global-level playing field and the rules-based international order, expecting others to do the same. But now the world is changing rapidly, surprising us.”
Politically, European countries are often ignored when major global crises erupt
Yet politicians in the different member states keep using the EU as a milking cow, trying to extract as many funds for their countries as possible, blaming the Brussels bureaucrats when things go wrong, and projecting themselves as defenders of national sovereignty. They lack a clear vision of people like Draghi, who does not need to impress anyone with his transformational leader credentials and does not care about the savage criticism of politicians like Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s La Lega far-right party.
The current strategic weaknesses in economic planning throughout the EU are cruelly described by Draghi, who claims: “We are lacking a strategy for how to keep pace in an increasing cut-throat race for leadership in new technologies. Today, we invest less in digital and advanced technologies than the US and China, including for defence, and we only have four global European tech players among the top 50 worldwide.”
Europe’s major competitors, the US and China, have the advantage of having continental-size economies to generate scale, increase investment and capture market share for the industries that matter. Europe has the same natural size but is fragmented into many different states with little interest in uniting economically.
Most member state leaders see the EU as just a common market where they can trade internally without too many restrictions. European Parliament MPs justify their existence and the cost to taxpayers for keeping them in their Strasbourg bubble by singing victory when they agree on some micro measures that have little impact on ordinary people’s lives.
The next European Commission will be in place in a few months. We will again see the painful spectacle of horse-trading between the different political blocks and the 27-member state leaders to elect the top institutional leaders. The bloated but practically impotent European Parliament will endlessly debate who to ‘approve’ as commissioners and who to send back home.
Draghi’s final comment in his speech in Belgium remains the most valid indication of what needs to be done.
He argues: “If we are to match the US and China, we will need a renewed partnership among the member states, a redefining of our Union is no less ambitious than that the Founding Fathers did 70 years ago with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community.”