Abstract
This article argues that Europe is at a critical juncture: it is facing geopolitical threats from Russia and the US while experiencing a steep decline in its share of global GDP. It further argues that to regain competitiveness, Europe must act decisively across four main areas: finances, regulation, research and development, and security. To address these challenges, this article proposes a ‘360-degree competitiveness compact’ that includes future-proofing the EU budget to fund public goods, drastically simplifying regulations to cut business costs, and creating a Savings and Investment Union to unlock trillions of euros in private capital for innovation.
Introduction
European security has been fundamentally threatened since Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022. At the same time, multilateralism is at risk as Donald Trump carries out his policies during his second term as US president. Against the background of such a fundamental shift in international as well as trade relations, Europe needs new concepts and strategies to protect itself against not only Russia’s imperialistic threats but also the Trump administration’s damaging policies. Europe needs to position itself as a serious global economic player. With regard to various economic difficulties, such as inflation and stagnating economic growth, Europe urgently needs to strengthen its competitiveness.
To solve Europe’s current wide-ranging problems, three key means of fostering sustainable growth in Europe have been identified: a) firstly, closing the innovation gap in comparison with the US and China; b) secondly, decreasing energy prices and implementing a common plan for decarbonisation and competitiveness; and c) thirdly, increasing European security and reducing international dependencies (Draghi, 2024: 17). In this article we focus on four main fields where it is necessary to act in order to close the productivity gap with the US and China and guarantee European resilience: a) finances and the budget; b) the regulatory framework; c) research and development; and d) the security and defence sector.
Current challenges for European global competitiveness
Europe’s economic position has been declining relative to the rest of the world. The European Union’s share of global GDP has declined from roughly 30% in 1980 to under 15% by 2025. A further decline is also forecast by 2029. This diminishing relative economic weight is a concern to both policymakers and economists and underscores the need for policies to enhance the EU’s competitiveness and growth potential.
Europe currently faces some of its greatest challenges since the Second World War. International law has been eroding since Russia has started an unprecedented war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022. New types of trade wars are evolving, threatening the central pillars of the World Trade Organization, since the start of Donald Trump’s second term as US president in January 2025. Trade disputes are arising while the global economy is still massively intertwined. Trade volumes with the US rose significantly over the past decade, with the US running a significant trade deficit in goods with both China and the euro area.
As a result, new geostrategic and geoeconomic conditions make it necessary for Europe to rely much more on its own competitiveness, innovative strength, and security. However, in contrast to the US and China, Europe’s economic growth has not kept up, with the euro area growing at only 1.3% per year over the past decade in real terms, a percentage point slower than the US and four percentage points slower than China. Market share for European companies has declined, whereas technological innovation and the digital revolution are occurring in the US, China, India, and elsewhere, but not in Europe. Moreover, demographic change will cause serious problems in the future as workforces shrink and the population ages. In his report ‘The Future of European Competitiveness’, Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank and former Italian Prime Minister, analysed the worrying developments and identified ‘three areas for action to reignite growth’ (Draghi, 2024: 6 ff).
Fossil fuels are indispensable for the EU for the time being as industry, energy production, commerce, and private households are still reliant on gas. However, in 2024, all EU Member States agreed to completely phase out Russian gas by 2027 (APA/dpa, 2024). In May 2024, energy ministers at the EU level discussed the import of renewable hydrogen from North Africa (APA, 2024). The affordability of gas and, increasingly, renewable energy is essential for European competitiveness.
Based on the Draghi Report, the European Commission developed the Competitiveness Compass (2025) as a roadmap for innovative technologies, services, and clean products to be designed in and brought to the European market, aiming for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent. The Competitiveness Compass addresses the fact that Europe is persistently lagging the US and China despite having all the assets it needs for productivity and economic growth, such as a well-qualified workforce and institutions for further up-skilling, capital, savings, the Single Market, and a unique social infrastructure.[1] The Draghi Report aims to close the innovation gap; to combine competitiveness and decarbonisation through the Clean Industrial Deal, further developing the previous Green Deal goals; and to reduce risky dependencies and increase European security with regard to energy and raw material supply through new Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships and Public Procurement rules (European Commission, 2025; European Council, 2025).
In pursuit of these goals, ‘five horizontal enablers for competitiveness’ with several ‘Omnibus Packages’ have been developed: 1) simplifying EU business regulations and procedures for EU funds access; 2) facilitating access to the Single Market by lowering existing obstacles; 3) inventing new savings and investment products to ensure an efficient capital market; 4) fostering and enhancing skills, lifelong learning possibilities, and quality jobs throughout Europe; and 5) harmonising EU and national policies to facilitate cross-border projects and financial support through a new Competitiveness Fund (European Commission, 2025; European Council, 2025).
[1] Well-built welfare states in the European Union require significant tax burdens that might contribute to competitiveness issues, however.
Four main fields in which to act
In the light of the Draghi Report and the EU Competitiveness Compass, we suggest and analyse further measures that could be implemented in the EU budget, regulations, innovation, and security and defence policies.
Future-proofing public finances
A future-oriented EU budget should be used for spending items that create genuine European added value (Felbermayr, 2024): cross-border infrastructure projects, research and innovation, the expansion of renewable energies, and the strengthening of the digital economy. These investments not only help keep Europe globally competitive but also ensure sustainable growth and future-proof jobs. However, currently the EU budget lacks the resources to be a strong pillar of European development in these areas, as a vast portion of the budget is earmarked for the Common Agricultural Policy and traditional Cohesion funds.
To ensure that the EU budget is future-oriented, the EU could introduce a measure called Future Share that estimates public spending with regard to long-term effects. Long-term investments in education, research and development (R&D), and green technology and infrastructure all contribute to the Future Share. Committing to a method to calculate a Future Share and adhere to, for example, a minimum share of 25% within the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) could steer the EU’s resources towards impactful, common goals.
By taking into account the Future Share approach, or ‘Zukunftsquote’, government spending can be divided into productive and unproductive investments. While investments in the above-mentioned areas are to be understood as productive ones as they foster competitiveness, resilience, and economic growth, unproductive public spending includes untargeted subsidies and excessive administrative costs, as these only fulfil short-term aims and lack a long-term perspective. Through fiscal policy, distinctions can be made between productive and unproductive forms of public spending to reveal the effects on competitiveness, resilience, and sustainable economic growth (Sustala, 2024).
As the current EU budgetary structure is misaligned with the Union’s strategic priorities, it continues to underinvest in areas that are critical for future growth and resilience. To address this, a Future Share target within the EU’s fiscal framework could help ensure that a greater portion of the budget is directed towards long-term investments in human capital, innovation, climate action, and infrastructure. In short, modernising budget governance through performance-based criteria, expanding the EU’s fiscal capacity beyond the traditional 1% of GNI, and strengthening the provision of European public goods are necessary pillars for a stronger Union. These pillars serve the aim to make the EU budget a more effective tool for driving sustainable competitiveness and addressing collective challenges (Sustala, 2024).
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also called upon the EU to make the MFF fit for purpose. Its economists argue in a working paper that the next seven-year EU budget (2028–2034) must grow by at least 50%, to about 1.7% of EU GNI. The policy aim should be to double the financial capacity for the financing of genuinely cross-border European public goods (EPGs). Priorities include energy security and the green transition, defence, and R&D, where joint provision internalises externalities, exploits economies of scale, and ultimately saves national treasuries money. An obvious example is effective external border management at the EU border. According to the IMF, more focus on forward-looking investment would also unlock sizeable productivity and resilience gains while supporting Single Market reforms.
Loosening EU regulations to reduce bureaucratic obstacles
As outlined by the EU Competitiveness Compass, the European Commission aims to simplify EU regulations and administrative conditions for businesses and companies in Europe. Currently political differences remain between the European Parliament and the Council on how to proceed. However, it is high time to end such overregulation, for instance in company reporting and supply chains, which leads to additional costs for businesses, companies, and start-ups and disadvantages them compared with non-European companies not bound by such strict rules, as Enrico Letta (2024) points out in ‘Much More than a Market’. This step proves to be a sine qua non condition for catching up with China and the US in productivity and economic growth.
While the US increasingly focuses on innovation in technology policy, Europe has hitherto been focused on regulation, if not overregulation. At the same time, the US is partially aligning its regulatory framework with that of the EU to facilitate exports by US companies. However, it is questionable whether there will be any more regulatory convergence under the second Trump administration (Wallsten, 2024; Obst et al., 2024). To prevent potential overregulation from stifling innovation, European institutions should ensure an appropriate degree of freedom of action. Only in this way can Europe assert itself internationally, especially in competition with the US and China, instead of falling far behind. In the short term, Europe should position itself as an attractive R&D cooperation partner, especially for liberal democracies – the new partnership with South Korea within the Horizon Europe programme is a good example. Implementing the Competitiveness Compass would be an important first step to achieve this goal.
The Competitiveness Compass of the European Commission puts simplification on the same footing as finance, skills, and deep tech in Europe’s productivity agenda. It aims for a headline target of cutting the aggregate administrative burden by 25% – and by 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – by the end of the 2024–2029 mandate. Delivery hinges on three mutually reinforcing instruments:
- Omnibus ‘cut-red-tape’ packages: the first omnibus (February 2025) streamlines sustainability reporting, merges overlapping due diligence obligations, and eliminates 47 obsolete provisions; the Commission estimates annual savings of €400 million once the measures are fully phased in. A second package, expected in Q4 2025, will rationalise product safety and eco-design rules, while a defence sector bundle is pencilled in for mid-2026.
- Digital by default and the once-only principle: by 2027, every EU licensing, funding, or reporting interface must be accessible through a single Business-in-Europe Portal. Companies will input core data just once and consent to its reuse across authorities, cutting filing time by up to 30% according to the Commission’s impact assessment.
A permanent implementation and simplification task force: every new proposal now undergoes a competitiveness check and an SME test; fragmented national gold-plating, – that is, overly complex or wide-ranging national regulation is tracked on a public scoreboard, with peer pressure and infringement procedures to follow for persistent offenders.
Yet political frictions remain. Several large Member States want carve-outs and are reluctant to sign off on ‘simplification’, fearing this could be associated with ‘lowering standards’, for instance in social policies. The European Parliament insists that any ‘net reduction’ in administrative burden must respect Green Deal objectives and fundamental rights safeguards. Bridging that gap requires an agreed methodology for measuring burdens.
A credible simplification drive is not mere housekeeping; it is Europe’s insurance policy against falling behind the US and China. While Washington has long been doubling down on some of its more protectionist yet pro-innovation incentives – for example, the CHIPS Act and the IRA tax credits – US regulators have quietly moved closer to EU standards on data and competition (Wallsten, 2024). The second Trump administration is, however, about to reverse that convergence and weaponise tariffs against what it calls ‘excessive Brussels red tape’. China, by contrast, applies light-touch rules to domestic champions and requires international corporations to establish partnerships with Chinese companies to gain effective access to their technologies and markets. Estimates vary, but experts see a significant structural cost wedge for European companies of 10–15 % versus their US peers (Letta, 2024).
Looking ahead, simplification should be elevated from a technical exercise to a principle of the Single Market. That means:
- adopting ‘one substance, one assessment’ across all product safety and sustainability legislation;
- giving businesses more rights to reply when national authorities add requirements beyond EU minima and thus impede the Single Market via ‘gold-plating’; and
- incorporating a sunset-and-review clause in every new regulation, forcing legislators to investigate the consequences of new legislation and evaluate its effects in an evidence-based fashion.</BL>
Taken together, these steps would turn Europe’s dense rulebook into a more predictable, proportionate, and innovation-friendly framework, release resources for R&D and growth rather than compliance, and restore the ability of companies to compete. However, overregulation in Europe is by no means an issue on the European level alone. Evidence of this is provided by the annual IMD World Competitiveness Compass (IMD, 2025), which ranks advanced economies worldwide on various indicators. One indicator concerns business legislation, broadly referring to regulatory barriers and burdens. The performance range of EU countries on this metric is surprisingly broad.
Whereas Denmark and Ireland rank among the top five global economies in this area, meaning they have the most business-friendly regulatory environment, several European economies are in the bottom third, including Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Croatia. This shows that even as European simplification is an important issue overall, the EU could also improve economic outcomes in Europe by creating incentives to follow best practices on the national level and limit the tendency of national or regional legislatures to create additional national administrative burdens. The first step could be by transparent reporting of national performances in terms of simplification, which would also make transparent the necessary simplification advances on the national level in Europe.
Investing in European innovation and R&D
Investments in innovation and R&D are one of the most productive types of expenditures as they have a multiplier effect, attracting private funding and generating spillover benefits. This contributes to a sustainable energy system and the development of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, fostering productivity and competitiveness (Kwok, 2023). Therefore, consistent fiscal policies and frameworks are needed to secure common European funding and priorities for trans-European projects, ensuring resilience in case of unforeseen developments and possible financial shocks.
A step in the right direction has been the NextGenerationEU initiative (NGEU), which was launched as a post-recession recovery programme following the COVID-19 pandemic. The NGEU programme has mobilised €750 billion to foster sustainable recovery through green investments and supporting digital transformation by 2050 (Sustala, 2024). Green investments address renewable energy projects, energy efficiency, and climate protection, whereas digital transformation funds anticipate digital infrastructure and skills development to foster competitiveness and technological sovereignty. Despite this and other broad EU funding programmes such as Horizon Europe or the Innovation Fund for the green and digital transition, more funding or productive spending is needed in the future, certainly before 2050. Only such productive spending can enable Europe to adapt to global shifts and catch up with the big global players in the long run.
Therefore, the future MFF for 2028–2034 promises to contain appropriate measures, as the European Commission aims to address necessary reforms together with strategic priorities in the context of current geopolitical shifts. It plans to propose a combination of EU reforms and new investments in key areas such as social fairness, prosperity, competitiveness, security, and defence (Thöne, 2024). The next MFF should therefore help the EU position itself as a global player in terms of sustainability and innovation through cross-border projects and prioritised green and digital transition, financed by performance-based funding models and public–private partnerships where suitable, for instance by crowding private investment into funds. While reducing bureaucracy, it should also be expected to allow more flexibility on the EU level to respond to future challenges and crises, such as climate catastrophes and geopolitical tensions or even conflicts.
Forming a security and defence union
Current geopolitical crises and conflicts show that Europe must be prepared for possible future hostile attacks. Overall, the order of the day is to make Europe resilient against all currently unforeseeable shocks and adverse circumstances. This is also the central idea of Europe’s strategic autonomy and of the ‘Strategic Agenda 2024–2029’, which was adopted in December 2023. In addition to liberal-democratic goals such as protecting civic rights, sustainable economic and climate policy, and European values, security and defence increasingly play an important role as well (Báchora, 2024: 14). Europe must therefore better position itself both internally and externally.
Given the current threat from Russia, the unpredictability of the US under Trump 2.0, and the fractious relationship with China, the Strategic Agenda aims, at best, to make Europe less dependent on all those superpowers (Marques da Silva, 2024). The ‘ReArm’ Plan and the White Paper on Defence by the European Commission promise a broad approach as well as €800 billion in funding. Both have been developed at a time when awareness of the importance of a common European defence – even a defence union – is growing (Witney, 2024). As the latest Eurobarometer survey shows, a clear majority of the European population agrees on the need for much closer cooperation among EU Member States and more EU-level solutions to face current challenges.
In that sense, the European Sky Shield Initiative, launched by the German government in October 2022, represents a significant step towards joint air defence. So far, 21 states have joined, including neutral countries such as Austria and Switzerland, a decision confirmed in Brussels in May 2024 (Hauser, 2024: 46). Beyond such conventional threats, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure as part of hybrid warfare are also on the rise. In view of the increasing number of cyberattacks, Europe must focus on its own cybersecurity. Data protection, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty, based on common European standards and regulations such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), are more important than ever. One of the current priorities when dealing with the threat of cyberattacks and cybersecurity should be to strengthen European institutions overall. Ultimately, only a united Europe can act as a serious global player.
Final recommendations: A 360-degree competitiveness compact for Europe
The twin shocks of a fracturing global order and the end of the post-Cold War peace dividend have presented the EU with a strategic choice: evolve into a fully fledged geoeconomic actor or cede ground – in security, technology, and standards-setting – to the US and China. Building on the Draghi and Letta reports as well as the Commission’s Competitiveness Compass, this article has focused on what is required for an ambitious yet necessary reform package centred on four mutually reinforcing pillars: 1) a future-oriented EU budget; 2) a lighter, more predictable regulatory environment; 3) an innovation and skills surge; and 4) a genuine security and defence union. The recommendations below bring these pillars together and point to a sequenced path for implementation.
Make the EU budget fit for purpose – and permanently finance it
For the 2028–2034 MFF, the Union should target an envelope that is fit for purpose. The EU budget should focus on funding cross-border EPGs: energy infrastructure (including hydrogen corridors and grid interconnectors), innovation and R&D, and common defence procurement. To avoid turning this ambition into a zero-sum fight with current projects, Member States could earmark upcoming new resources – such as the emissions-based border levy or the proposed tobacco tax.
Unlock private savings through a Savings and Investment Union
Households in the euro area still hold more than €10 trillion in low-yield deposits, roughly 70% of household savings – an untapped pool that could finance some of Europe’s necessary investments. The 2025 Savings and Investment Union strategy should therefore be upgraded into binding legislation that 1) creates simple retail capital accounts that are portable across Member States; 2) completes the single rulebook; and 3) mandates that the expanded MFF should be accompanied by mobilising equity, guarantees, and public–private partnerships to crowd in private capital. This would transform the public budget from a grant dispenser into a market mover and scale the investible pipeline for pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and retail investors alike.
Simpler, lighter, faster: Legislate less and implement better
Regulatory complexity is now as material a cost factor as labour or energy. The Commission’s pledge to cut administrative burdens by 25% should become a clear ceiling. Every new Act ought to include a) a competitiveness test, b) a sunset-and-review clause, and c) a ‘once-only’ data collection guarantee. Where multiple pieces of legislation intersect, omnibus amendments should replace piecemeal tinkering. Finally, a digital Business in Europe Portal should introduced, allowing firms to file various types of documents through a single interface. If fully implemented, the combination of burden caps, sunset clauses, and digital portals could significantly reduce compliance costs over the next few years, freeing up capital that companies can instead channel into productivity-enhancing investment.
Double down on the innovation–skills nexus
Europe’s demographics drag – its working-age population is projected to fall – cannot be offset without a two-pronged response: world-class research ecosystems and a talent magnet. A significant expansion of Horizon Europe programmes would anchor the continent’s leadership in frontier sectors. In terms of alleviating labour shortages, especially of high-skilled labour, Blue Card admission thresholds could be aligned with the US H-1B visa programme in both salary and qualification requirements, while mutual recognition of degrees with key partner countries (Australia, India, Canada) could shorten onboarding times for graduates. Crucially, demographic openness must be matched by proactive integration to avoid the social fragmentation that fuels political backlash against immigration.
Achieve energy sovereignty through diversified supply chains
Europe will close little of its productivity gap if electricity prices stay significantly above US and Chinese industrial prices. The quickest lever is to decouple power prices from gas marginal costs by expanding sustainable production, investing in energy networks and infrastructure, and creating contracts-for-difference for renewables and allowing long-term fixed-price industrial power purchase agreements. A Clean Industrial Deal facility could crowd in private finance and deliver the critical mass needed to make Europe a price setter rather than a price taker in the global green hydrogen market.
Move from ad hoc defence cooperation to a security and defence union
Europe’s 2024–2029 Strategic Agenda elevates security and defence – alongside traditional liberal-democratic priorities – to the core of the Union’s quest for strategic autonomy. Faced with Russia’s aggression, potential US unpredictability, and a strained relationship with China, the EU has no alternative than moving towards a fully fledged security and defence union. Only by uniting its capabilities, as in the form of the ‘ReArm’ Plan and Defence White Paper, the DSA and DMA as well as the European Sky Shield Initiative, can Europe act as a credible global player.
Conclusion
None of the above will materialise without robust governance. It is important for the European Commission to track MFF execution, regulatory burden metrics, and capital market deepening against clear key performance indicators. An annual State of the Union competitiveness dashboard or report should make reform momentum visible to legislators, investors, and citizens alike. Although direct influence on national policies is limited in many policy areas, clear and transparent achievements or failures put political pressure on governments.
If enacted in full, the competitiveness compact could raise EU potential growth by ¾ to 1 percentage point over the next decade, close half of the current productivity gap with the US, and position Europe as the critical node in a wider coalition of liberal democracies. More importantly, it would shift the policy approach from a reactive to a preventive mode of governing and problem solving: Europe would fund its own security, power its green transformation, and create tech ecosystems where the best researchers and entrepreneurs choose to build instead of emigrating.
In sum, Europe’s moment of truth has arrived. Fiscal space still exists, especially in Germany and northern Europe; private savings are abundant; and public support for strategic autonomy has never been higher. What is required now is not another round of vision documents, but concrete legislative timetables, binding budgets, and accountability for delivery. The reforms proposed here form a coherent, affordable, and urgently needed roadmap to ensure that, by the mid-2030s, the EU is not merely responding to external shocks but shaping the rules, standards, and technologies of the twenty-first century on its own terms.
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