Eagerly awaited: Mario Draghi's report on the future of European competitiveness. Expectations fulfilled?

Draghi characterises his report as urgent and concrete. He ruthlessly reveals where and how Europe is faltering in the face of international competition and, in particular, in the face of China. Too many individual national approaches, too little coordination between European policy areas.
He calls for a stringent global approach to enable larger financing packages and the scaling of key industrial projects. He calls for a focus on strengthening innovation and maintaining Europe as an industrial location in order to guarantee our prosperity and preserve our economy.

The only way to do this is to decarbonise industry and exploit the remaining potential in cleantech, including the automotive industry - alongside digitalisation, these are the key areas of competition in which Europe is losing out to China and the USA. All possible means must be mobilised to achieve this, from cheaper energy, more centralised decision-making across various policy areas and massive financial resources.

Many of the concrete measures (170!) are not new, such as speeding up permitting, strengthening administrations or creating single entry points to access EU funds. But there are also more radical demands, such as an additional 800 billion euros a year in public and private investment, financed through a European safe asset. Or a European framework for centralised decision-making on energy policy issues for a genuine energy union, comparable to the European Monetary Union.

Overall, the report is good news, because accepting deindustrialisation would be the kind of dreaded green transition that people do not want. However, in view of the proposed measures, many Member States would have to step out of their political comfort zone. And it remains to be seen which of the proposals Commission President von der Leyen will ultimately include in her new political programme.