Draghi at the commission’s seminar on competitiveness. Roadmap for the next legislative term after European elections

Brussels – Tomorrow (Jan. 12) there will also be Mario Draghi at the European Commission’s first seminar of the year, which will see the president, Ursula von der Leyen, and other members of the college gather in the small town of Jodoigne in Belgium, a few kilometres from the capital. An occasion to reflect on the past few months and to list the major projects that the Commission plans to carry out in the final few months of the current legislature before it ends in June with the European elections that will create a new hemicycle and begin the next legislature. Nothing new, the commission organizes such events periodically and regularly. The commission president will gather members of the college tomorrow outside Brussels for a secret “event-seminar” to focus on what the priorities of the future will be—and competitiveness will be at the center of the meeting.

The meeting will also be attended by former Italian premier and former ECB President Draghi, back in the centre of the European debate as a possible candidate to lead the European Council to replace Charles Michel. In September, Draghi was commissioned by President von der Leyen to develop a report on the competitiveness of the European economy, which he is expected to present after the European elections.

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The issue of EU industrial competitiveness, particularly in the face of the challenges from China and the United States, has been dominant during the year that has just come to a close. The EU executive laid the groundwork for an Industrial Plan for the Green Deal, as a response to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the massive green subsidy plan launched by the United States for nearly 370 billion that Brussels fears will disadvantage European companies. In September, she then commissioned the former ECB man to draft a report highlighting challenges and opportunities for the Made in Europe industry, which will be the focus of the European Council at the end of March. In recent days, Draghi met with the European Roundtable for Industry (ERT) to find insights for the report. Today in Brussels he met Business Europe. After the meeting with the former ECB man, President Fredrik Persson ‘stressed the urgent need for a strategic approach to the competitiveness of the European Union as a business location and as a place to invest’. The meeting with Draghi was attended by “a small BusinessEurope delegation, led by its president and in the presence of Confindustria president Carlo Bonomi. “The European business community welcomed the European Commission president’s call to do ‘whatever it takes’ to strengthen the EU’s industrial competitiveness, as European industry is currently in a very difficult situation,” Persson added, pointing out that “we have high expectations of Mario Draghi’s forthcoming report, as his important work should lead to concrete actions to put the European economy back on top of the agenda and put it back on track in the next institutional cycle”.