“With the duties we are at the breaking point of the multilateral order”. This is the unprecedented alarm that launched Mario Draghi by intervening at the XVIII Cotec symposium in Coimbra, Portugal. The former president of the ECB and the Italian Council has criticized the growing use of unilateral actions to resolve commercial disputes and the progressive emptying of the World Trade Organization (WTO), talking about “difficult reversible” damage for the multilateral system, in what is a veiled attack on the policies adopted by the US President Donald Trump.
To echo, the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who closed the summit together with the king of Spain Filippo VI and the Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. “Our Symposium launches an appeal to the highly topical action: it is urgent, I would say a priority, that Europe acts. Staying is no longer an option,” said Giacomo Puccini even citing: “Neither sleeps inside the EU”.
European technological delay
In his speech, Draghi emphasized the delay accumulated by Europe in the “revolutions” of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. “We found ourselves cutting out, while continuing to create an environment that hinders radical innovation”. In particular, the former premier has identified in the fragmentation of the single market and in the regulatory rigidity two of the main causes of the lack of European technological development.
Draghi, the recipe is known: now the “do Something” is needed
“Our competition policies have not adapted to the current technological transformation. Innovation should have played a greater role in decisions,” said Draghi, denouncing an excess of regulation that penalizes above all small European companies, unable to compete with the US giants. “Today we are with over 270 active regulators in digital networks in the various Member States: a fragmented framework and, in some areas, excessive”.
Common defense and integration
On the European front, Draghi pointed the finger at the slowness of the Member States: “The common EU debt is the key to investing in defense, but only five Eurozone countries have so far activated the safeguard clause”. A situation that risks leaving Europe back in an increasingly unstable geopolitical context.
The European Union has, as a whole, of one of the most numerous armed forces in the world, with 1.4 million soldiers. Yet, in the defense level, it remains “irrelevant”, says Draghi. “Today Europe can count on one of the largest global military forces, but is divided into 27 national armies, without a common chain of command, technologically fragmented and without a shared strategy,” explained the former premier. A structure that, in his opinion, compromises the ability of the union to react effectively to threats.
Draghi recalled how “the growing threats on our eastern border have been evident for at least a decade”. And he accused Moscow of never having hidden his hostility towards Europe. “Russia considers us an enemy to weaken through the hybrid war: ten years ago he has annexed Crimea, three years ago he invaded Ukraine,” he said. Despite this scenario, according to the former Italian premier, Europe has made “very little” to strengthen its safety.
President Mattarella has also relaunched the need for a common European defense, a theme that, he recalled, has been on the table for over 70 years, since the Paris treaty of 1952. “It is not difficult to imagine what the condition of the Union would be today if we had accomplished that political leap then”, he observed.
According to Mattarella, Europe is today “late, on the run of the events” and must act urgently. The initiatives promoted by the European Commission go in the right direction, but remain “a first step”. For the Head of State, a full awareness of the stakes is needed: “The risks of immobility, as illustrated in the dragons and read relationships, include a retreat in widespread well -being and a removal from the technological frontier, with serious strategic and geopolitical vulnerabilities”.
