‘Super Mario’ Draghi calls for €800 billion to ensure EU competes with US and China
‘We can’t be softer or harder across the board’ on China, Draghi says, as he calls for ‘tactical’ EU trade policy in long-awaited report
That is the advice from Mario Draghi, the venerated former Italian leader who has, for a second time, been drafted to save the European economy from oblivion.
Tasked a year ago with drawing up a blueprint for the “future of European competitiveness”, the man who – when at the helm of the central bank – was dubbed “Super Mario” for helping drag the bloc out of its debt crisis from 2011, was unequivocal about the scale of the challenge.
Jolting the EU from its productivity mire will cost €800 billion (US$883 billion) in investment, including significant joint funding – anathema to some of its members – and an embrace of subsidies and tactical protectionist trade measures, Draghi wrote in a hotly anticipated 400-page report, presented in Brussels on Monday.
“If Europe cannot become more productive, we will be forced to choose. We will not be able to become, at once, a leader in new technologies, a beacon of climate responsibility and an independent player on the world stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to scale back some, if not all, of our ambitions,” he wrote.