On 9 September 2024, Mario Draghi, the former Italian prime minister and former President of the European Central Bank, presented his long-awaited report on the EU economy and EU competitiveness. This is an immense report, 400 pages in total, containing a myriad of proposals to reform and rejuvenate a stagnant and sluggish EU economy, an economy that he claims is fast losing ground to other major global competitors, such as the US and China.
Draghi leaves no stone unturned in his analysis of the EU’s economic weaknesses and this CEPS Explainer attempts to provide a first concise overview of his key messages and proposed reforms, what they mean, what the potential obstacles are and how feasible it is that they can actually be implemented.
But the overall message of the Draghi report come across loud and clear and cannot be easily refuted – that the EU must change, that the status quo cannot hold any longer and that only bold reforms will successfully end the Union’s economic malaise.
About the author:
Jacques Pelkmans is an Associate Senior Fellow at CEPS, specialising in EU trade and investment policy, the EU single market and the economics and political economy of EU regulation.