A European Union in need of radical change to be fit for the world of today and tomorrow. Talking about the renewal of the EU is former Council President Mario Draghi, speaking yesterday during the high-level conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights, organized by the rotating EU Presidency of Belgium and hosted in the Belgian city of La Hulpe. The reference was to the report on the competitiveness of the European Union that he was asked about by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: "What I will propose in my report is a radical change. This is what we need," the former Prime Minister said. And, speaking about the political cohesion of member states, he added: "We need to be aware that political cohesion is threatened by changes in the rest of the world," he stressed, "Restoring our competitiveness is not something we can achieve on our own or by competing with each other. It requires us to act as the European Union in a way we have never acted before”. In particular, Draghi pointed to the lack of a European industrial strategy with a global outlook that could rival the United States and China. "We trusted in the global level playing field and the rules-based international order, expecting others to do the same," he said, "but others no longer play by the rules and develop policies to strengthen their position. Draghi's warning, specifically, concerns those attempts to redirect investment to other economies by penalizing European ones or to create situations of permanent economic dependence. He went on to state that "there is a lack of strategy on how to protect our traditional industries from the unequal global playing field”.
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