Duty, because nothing will be more as before after Trump’s challenge to world trade

Perhaps because it is Italian and Italy concentrates and ends many of the weaknesses of the European Union, Mario Draghi In this regard it seems to have a particular sensitivity. Takes and photograph the contradictions mercilessly, As he returned to do yesterday in Coimbra. It was certainly not the first time, especially since he said that Europe risks a « slow agony » if it does not adopt the reforms for investments, productivity, the demolition of internal barriers (read: income positions) outlined in its report on the competitiveness of last autumn.

Draghi’s warning: « There is no more time to waste »

But the Portuguese discourse of the former premier, carefully read, marks a qualitative leap. Dragons He is telling the European Championships that There is no more time. There is no room to continue to go on with the gaze turned backwards. For him trying to preserve yesterday’s world – now in a thousand pieces – risks translating into a waste of economic, political and human energies. And certainly there is no need to try to pull dragons for the jacket, forcing his words into different shapes and contexts. But, once again, his experience of Italy must have contributed to giving the former central banker his acumen in reading Europe’s evils in transparency.

The change started for some time

Some passages in the Coimbra’s speech They appear thought for a long time, weighed in every word. Like when Draghi says that the changes in progress, disruptive with the return of Donald Trump at the White house« They had been underway for years and the situation was also deteriorating since before recent upheavals » as far as « for now, internal political fragmentation and the numb growth hinder an effective European response ».

Trump’s breaking point

Draghi warns, right at the beginning of his Portuguese speech: « Recent events are a breakage point ». How to say that not even a agreement on duties Between the United States and Europe or a recomposition of the war in Ukraine they will bring the West back to its past twenty or thirty years ago. « The vast use of unilateral actions to resolve recriminations on exchanges and definitive weakening of the world organization under the multilateral order in a difficult reversible way ».

The West that will no longer return

And again Draghi insists on one of its central points, warning as far as the illusion that for Europe it is still possible to remain attached to a world in which the relationship with America guaranteed at the costs of the costs of safety, access to the market and the technological border. That model of the West, warns Draghi, will not return. « The recent actions of the American administration will surely have an impact on the European economy. And even if the commercial tensions dropped – he says – probably the uncertainty will remain in the air and slow down investments in the manufacturing sector of the European Union « .

No alternative to American consumers

So for Draghi Europe – with Italy inside – must look forward. Not to the preservation of a system of relations and global institutions trained after the war and arrived at its triumph with the fall of the Berlin Wall. For the immediate, the former premier claims that there is no alternative for Europe to try to maintain access to American consumers, who alone represent 18% of the Gross world product And in fact they would not be replaced by any commercial agreement with third countries. « But on the longest period to believe that we will return to normal in trade with the United States after such a great break in the relationship », warns Draghi, « is a bet ».

Europe’s mistakes

On these bases, those that Europe continues to commit (and here too we have always tried to think that the former premier treasure his treasure of his visual as an Italian) seem to him. Starting from poor worknow become the variable of adjusting a production system that does not invest, does not innovate and does not form enough resources to technologies, leaving an insufficient space for younger and educated generations. « Especially after the crises, we made a deliberate effort to suppress the growth of wages in order to increase foreign competitiveness – says Draghi -. Our royal wages have not been able to keep up with our slow growth of productivity.  » Hence his attack on position income (but Draghi does not call them this) that hinder in every way the offer of efficient services at sustainable prices for businesses and families: another evil well known in Italy, although certainly also here Draghi speaks of Europe and not only of some countries in particular. « Essentially we have given up developing the internal market as a source of growth, » he says.

The crisis that began 20 years ago

His conclusions are hard. Not to push Europe to raise the white flag, but to trigger a reaction to a trend that sees it on the margins of large technological and geopolitical challenges. On the reforms, we ask: « Our past performance suggests that we are credible to complete them? ». And again: «It is often said that Europe goes on only in the crises. But in truth our crisis began twenty years ago. It was then that the geopolitical structure created after the Second World War and arrived at his climax with the fall of the Soviet Union began to collapse – Martella Draghi -. And it was then that our position in innovation and technologies started to slide backwards. But for a long time we have ignored these signs ».

The example of gas and energy

Draghi does not say it and it would be incorrect to attribute it to him, but much of what he says of Europe applies to Italy: the failure to reaction to the technological and productivity decline, the attempting to hurry up to the world of yesterday, the failure to reaction to the signs of decline in innovation, the difficulty in moving himself between changed geopolitical references. And the defense of position income. Draghi says: «Consider energy. Our gase imports from Russia continued to grow even after the invasion of Crimea and after Putin’s hostility towards the West and the European Union has been clearly declared « . For this – continues the former premier – we need to reform our energy markets but creates discouragement to see how Europe has become hostage to well -rooted interests established « .

Working at tomorrow’s Europe

Draghi does not specify which « constituted interests » speaks, even if someone will be able to think of the national energy champions. Certainly proposes: « The European Commission, which has created a task force on transparency, may want to launch an independent investigation into the overall functioning of the energy markets in the European Union ». Similar criticisms then on European retreat in artificial intelligence and in the areas that make it possible: the cloud, supercomputing, cyber security and large networks for data transport. To them could be added the availability of abundant quantities of decarbonized electricity. Certainly they are words with a constructive spirit, aimed at pushing the decision makers to the necessary choices on the market, investments and common debt. But they start from an assumption: yesterday’s West is over, we work on tomorrow’s Europe.