(Finance) – Nel new geopolitical context, faced with the dimensions of today’s global challenges, the concept of sovereignty is “too weak” if it remains limited to a national context, whatever the European country it refers to, and only makes sense if it refers to the European scale. It is one of the key steps of the Italian Prime Minister and the ECB Mario Draghi, during a debate televised this afternoon in Brussels by the Institute Bruegel on its report on the future of competitiveness of the EU.
In particular, to a journalist who asked him whether the report does not envisage “an exchange between sovereignty and money” for the Member States, or the need to give up certain national prerogatives to achieve the economy of scale that companies need to develop, be competitive and prosper, Draghi replied: “If sovereignty means having small companiesand who are unable to expand, or even start their own business because the space is too tight for them? To this extent, yes, there is an exchange. Do you want to give your companies a bigger market where they can expand? Then rules must be agreed upon that are in the common interest. I think that perhaps in this sense yes”, there is an exchange, even if I wouldn’t put it that way”
“One of the things I keep saying – added Draghi – is that all our countries are too small to cope with the size, the scale of the current challenges. Therefore – he observed – the concept of sovereignty that underlines this relationship is European sovereignty, not national sovereignty. Everything we see today shows that national sovereignty is too weak, it is too weak a concept”, noted the former Prime Minister.
During his speech, Draghi underlined that “if there is a common theme in the report it is that we must aim to strive to increase productivity growth. And that this also also has to do with being able to implement our values of fairness, safety and independence. And given the changes in the geopolitical context this has become a political priority”https://www.Finance.it/DettaglioNews/221_2024-09-30_TLB/.”And certainly – he added – among the values where we should achieve results we have first of all the climate”.
“The second message – continued Draghi – is that the most important step we must take to achieve results is to integrate our markets. First of all the single market. I think the single market and the public goods that come with it why so important? Why If productivity is the goal, economies of scale in many analyzed sectors have become an essential ingredient. Only an integrated single market can achieve economies of scale.” Draghi also underlined that while improving innovation and productivity “We should also manage the fallout of the present“. For example, bearing in mind that we are not in a context of fair competition in the world economy: “competition from abroad is driven by innovation, but also by massive asymmetries in public subsidies. And there is a second region – Draghi said again – that the alternative to having a European strategy is not not having an industrial strategy, but having many uncoordinated industrial industrial strategies