The report on the competitiveness of the EU, which was presented by the former president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, and which will be debated by the European Parliament, highlights the urgent need to increase productivity and strengthen investments - writes See.biz.
Draghi called for large investments of 750 to 800 billion euros per year. According to Marko Jaklic, a professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana, Europe definitely needs investments in smart mobility infrastructure, electricity production and distribution, and health infrastructure, and each member has its own investment needs, but financing is a problem. As Draghi notes, the EU's joint borrowing needs to be activated to realize the EU's ambitions in the field of digital and green transformation.

Europe was capable of joint borrowing while dealing with the Covid crisis, but most countries, including Germany, are strongly against it, Jaklic told STA.

"I am quite skeptical, there are certainly economic reasons for joint investment and financing, but I am not sure that there is political maturity yet. "I will be positively surprised if the new European Commission shows that it is capable of convincing the member states, at least some key ones, such as Germany, that it is necessary to do this," Jaklic said.

"Europe has lost its export competitiveness in third markets, the main producers of green technologies are from Asia, especially China." China also promotes the development of the right technologies and the size of the market, and the harshness of the market struggle in the domestic market strengthens Chinese companies to be successful in other markets as well," wrote Bojan Ivanc, Chief Economist of the Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia (GZS). , for STA.

Among the reasons for lagging behind, Ivanc states that in Europe the stability of the social system is a very important political goal, which is subordinated to the pursuit of competitiveness. Europe is not for such fluctuations in the labor market. As he adds, the main topic in the media is the existence of jobs in the factories that Volkswagen has to close.

"Considering the lack of employees in Europe, content-wise this is not a challenge at all." "We need to focus more on what new jobs a transformed Volkswagen will offer," says Ivanc.

He notes that the key problem is not the lack of innovation, but its transfer to the market.

"The report is not an ideal recipe for every country, but it is quite a good recipe for encouraging the development of European multinational companies, which would be easier to deal with in the market battle with American and Asian competitors," Ivanc is convinced.

Draghi warns that Europe needs an industrial strategy, but regrets that it cannot be coordinated.

"If we look at the last 15 years, Europe is far behind the United States in terms of productivity growth," says Jaklic.

Both economists cite the lower cost of energy in the United States, as well as tax policy and the dominance of digital technologies, among the reasons for the better competitive position of the United States.