{"id":466592,"date":"2026-10-01T19:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/01\/draghi-inevitabile-risanare-i-conti-ma-non-solo-con-tagli-e-tasse-necessaria-la-crescita\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:50:16","slug":"draghi-balancing-the-books-is-inevitable-but-not-just-through-cuts-and-taxes-growth-is-essential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/01\/draghi-balancing-the-books-is-inevitable-but-not-just-through-cuts-and-taxes-growth-is-essential\/","title":{"rendered":"Draghi: Balancing the books is inevitable, but not just through cuts and taxes &#8211; growth is essential"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels \u2013 Spending cuts and tax rises are not enough to balance the public finances. The watchword, rather, is \u201cgrowth\u201d. So says <strong>Mario Draghi<\/strong>, who today (1 October) delivered his lecture \u2013 entitled \u201cThe Central Bank, Growth and European Integration\u201d \u2013 in memory of the economist Karl Brunner at the Swiss National Bank. \u201cIf governments were to finance increased spending needs without implementing further consolidation measures or reforms, the average debt-to-GDP ratio in Europe would reach 130 per cent by 2040. Weighted by the size of the economies, the figure rises to 155 per cent,\u201d calculates the former ECB President. \u201c<strong>Some fiscal consolidation in the medium term is inevitable<\/strong>. <strong>However<\/strong>, <strong>if this process were to rely exclusively on spending cuts and tax increases<\/strong>, <strong>it would be unlikely to deliver the necessary results,<\/strong>\u201d he emphasises. Draghi points out that, \u201cover the last three decades, typical consolidation measures in Europe have generated an overall recovery of 3\u20134 per cent of GDP,\u201d and that \u201cthose requiring an adjustment would now need to improve their primary balances by around 6\u20137 per cent of GDP, which is almost double that figure.\u201d Furthermore, \u201ceven the smaller effort required in the past was never politically straightforward,\u201d the former prime minister points out. For this reason, \u201c<strong>governments\u2019 ability to implement consolidation depends<\/strong>, <strong>therefore<\/strong>, <strong>on growth.<\/strong>\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In this context, while \u201cinterest rates are increasingly determined outside Europe,\u201d \u201c<strong>growth is a variable over which Europe still has some influence.<\/strong>\u201d For example, \u201can additional half a percentage point of growth per year, sustained until 2040 and accompanied by the setting aside of part of the increased revenue, would enable Europe to cover around a third of the path towards a sustainable debt trajectory,\u201d Draghi explains. And this growth is \u201cachievable\u201d because \u201c<strong>the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence could boost total factor productivity growth by up to 0.4 percentage points over the next decade<\/strong>, while domestic reforms and those of the single market could, collectively, a further half a percentage point per annum.\u201d Without this kind of growth, debt would continue \u201cto rise of its own accord, fuelling the temptation to finance it through the central bank.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For Draghi, therefore, \u201c<strong>growth should become an explicit objective shared by all governments,<\/strong>\u201d while \u201cEurope\u2019s usual response, characterised by individual countries acting independently, will not be sufficient in the current global context.\u201d For this reason, while national reforms \u201cremain important,\u201d it must be recognised that \u201cthey cannot guarantee the scale on which technology \u2013 and, consequently, growth \u2013 now depend,\u201d because \u201conly integration can do so.\u201d Therefore, \u201c<strong>supranational reforms have become the key driver of growth,<\/strong>\u201d states Draghi, noting that \u201ca detailed plan to implement these reforms was set out in the report on Europe\u2019s competitiveness, and much of it has now been incorporated into the EU\u2019s common roadmap.\u201d The implementation of this common roadmap is an \u201cabsolute priority.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to the former prime minister, therefore, the more European integration \u201cprogresses, the more growth can remain consistently above interest rates, and the more the Central Bank will be protected from political pressures.\u201d In this way, \u201cgrowth and independence end up reinforcing one another,\u201d as demonstrated by the fact that \u201ca generation ago, Europe adopted a monetary constitution that has withstood all subsequent crises.\u201d The foundations consist of an independent central bank, with a clear priority on price stability, and fiscal discipline. \u201cThis framework remains the right one. However, for this framework to endure,<strong> legislators at the national and European levels must now take full responsibility for growth as an objective of the Union<\/strong>. In doing so, they will set Europe on the path to renewal,\u201d concludes the former Italian Prime Minister.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former Italian Prime Minister gave a lecture in memory of the economist Karl Brunner at the Swiss National Bank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":435519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705,25681],"tags":[25881,30188,25741,34500,36055,36056,33394],"class_list":["post-466592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-politics","tag-debt-en","tag-draghi","tag-risanamento-conti-pubblici","tag-stati","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466593,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466592\/revisions\/466593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}