The alarms in regards to the delay of the European Union within the growth of excessive applied sciences in comparison with the United States and China are intensifying. In 2024, the Draghi and Letta reviews dissected the causes of this delay and launched decisive proposals. Draghi advocated for a larger public funding effort and estimated that the EU ought to allocate 800 billion euros yearly to catch up. Letta identified the shortage of capitalization of European firms and estimated the European financial savings that go to the United States annually at 300,000 million euros.
A yr later, regardless of these sturdy warnings, European inaction is blatant. Draghi has criticized that solely 11% of his proposals have been fulfilled and that now to make up for misplaced time, the required investments must be raised to 1.3 billion euros per yr. Christine Lagarde, president of the ECB, has simply described European inaction as “irresponsible.” And he defined the causes of the flight of European financial savings: “US markets have offered returns approximately five times higher than European ones since 2000.”
Among the explanations for the superior dynamism of the American and Chinese economies is the larger weight of state intervention of their economies. The want for a brand new industrial coverage within the EU is analyzed within the enlightening examine The new industrial coverage within the European Unionby professors Rafael Myro and Vicente Salas, printed by the political economic system opinion and reflection group EuropeG.
The examine, which delves into the work of Letta and Draghi, advocates a overview of the regulation and competitors insurance policies utilized by the Union. The evaluation raises a ‘trilemma’ between industrial coverage, regulation and competitors protection. Describe the three present situations on the planet: regulated market (predominance of regulation and competitors, which has been the standard EU mannequin), concerted market (predominance of regulation and industrial coverage, near the US mannequin), and focused market (prevalence of competitors and industrial coverage, much like the Chinese mannequin). And he highlights that Draghi and Letta “inclined towards models between targeted market ye“arranged”.
The authors relate the aggressive weak point of European firms to the function of enormous lobbies in sure sectors. They do not forget that industrial coverage tries to appropriate market failures to protect the social worth of sure items and companies, that the free market that responds to personal curiosity and profit is much less optimum. They clarify that industrial coverage “is closer to economic planning, that is, to the economic management of the State.”
In Our outdated market mentality, (1947) Karl Polany already dismantled the supposed advantages of financial liberalism: “During the course of the war,” he explains, “the United Kingdom introduced a completely planned economy and abolished the separation between the Government and industry that arose from the nineteenth-century conception of freedom. However, public liberties were never more entrenched than at the height of the war.” We must recuperate the classics.
https://elpais.com/economia/2025-11-24/la-politica-industrial-que-precisa-la-ue.html