The President of BusinessEurope, Frederik Persson, said this Thursday at the Forum Europa in Brussels that it is urgent that the European Commission implement the recommendations included in the report prepared by Mario Draghi to improve the competitiveness of the continent.
At this event organized by New Economy Forum in the European capital, Persson valued that the 200 suggestions of the report "go in the right direction to overcome the situation we are in”.
Along these lines, he valued that unlike a few years ago "now everyone talks about competitiveness, the question is, of course, that we recognise the problem". Therefore, he valued that "the President of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, says that it is at the top of our agenda and at the center of our action”.
“So the issue is there and for me there is recognition, the challenge is that there is a sense of urgency, so if we agree with Brussels that “in Europe we have a problem, that is why it is so important that the time to act is now, not tomorrow”, he continued.
In summary, Persson pointed out that the solutions are to lower energy prices, reduce the regulatory burden, flatten the curve of underlying inflation, and the resilience of supply chains and companies.
“We must put Europe back in the first position because it is and must be the best place to be,” continued the head of the European employers' association, who defended that improving competitiveness is a structural need and not a response to the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
As he warned, Europe's GDP has grown only 16% in the last 20 years, much less than that of China or the United States, which has caused the “risk of deindustrialisation” on the continent.
Finally, he pointed out that Europe must have “an ambitious trade policy”, since it represents only 6% of the world's population and that means that it should export 90% of what it produces. “We have to export the excellent goods that European industry can produce”, he added.
For his part, the president of the business group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Stefano Mallia, stressed when introducing Persson that “we have managed to put competitiveness back at the centre of political and policy debates”.
In this sense, he agreed with Persson that “now more than ever we need action and I think that the Draghi report presented a few days ago clearly lists the various actions that we need to carry out”.
