Europe needs a political and technological wake-up call to preserve its standard of living. The ecological transition can be the catalyst for renewal.
The European economy has fallen behind. Many indicators are worrying. The Old Continent would no longer be "competitive" against the American and Chinese giants. "Over the three decades following the Second World War, Western Europe has caught up with the United States in terms of GDP per capita. But since the mid-1990s, this trend has reversed. The United States is advancing twice as fast as Europe," summarize economists Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont and Nobel Prize winner in Economics Jean Tirole (Project Syndicate).
At the request of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, two former Italian prime ministers, Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, have sought the causes and remedies for this decline. Their reports point to the weaknesses of a single market that is partially integrated but unfinished, insufficient funding for private and public research, a fragmented capital market, the absence of effective competition, and a tendency to over-regulate without anticipating new geopolitical challenges.
As Charles Wyplosz points out (Telos), the President of the European Commission knows that the investment plan – and its €800 billion – recommended by Mario Draghi to revive and stimulate the European economy has little chance of being accepted by a majority of Member States. Faced with a predictable deadlock, she is exploring other budgetary leeway by seeking to merge certain existing funds, such as those allocated to agricultural and regional policy. A legitimate approach but one that runs up against the prevailing sovereigntism that blocks the path to deeper European integration.
This is the whole paradox: the EU is rich but wastes its resources by supporting declining sectors and does not invest enough in areas with future potential.
The proposals made by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta have attracted very little interest in the mainstream general media. A pity, because they testify to the urgency of reforming European institutions and removing the obstacles that undermine the EU's growth potential, an economic area that nonetheless runs large surpluses in its trade with the rest of the world and has considerable private savings. It is the whole paradox: the EU is rich but wastes its resources by supporting declining sectors and does not invest enough in areas with future potential.
Experts in European research, who advise the Commission, share this alarming assessment and draw radical conclusions. In a recent report, they recommend the creation of an independent Council for industrial and technological competitiveness, as well as a European Council on societal challenges to steer collaborative research. According to Science Business, these experts are asking "that the overall budget for research and innovation increase from €93.5 to €220 billion, as part of a major effort to regain Europe's lost competitiveness."
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"For SMEs and micro-enterprises, which make up a large majority of the Swiss economic fabric, the transition is no longer a mere environmental option, but a strategic necessity to ensure our prosperity," says Christophe Barman, national co-president of the FSE.
"If we want to succeed in the energy transition, we must also accept financing it. That requires clear and reliable rules capable of guaranteeing sufficient incentives for investment," explains Michael Frank, director of AES.
Responding to a recent survey conducted by Comparis on Swiss real estate, Sascha Nick, a researcher at EPFL's Laboratory of Environmental and Urban Economics, says that "Switzerland is not suffering from a housing shortage."
"Launched for reasons that are more electoral than ecological, the call for a climate fund that would absorb between 5 and 10 billion francs each year appears unnecessary, absurd, costly, centralizing and poorly conceived," says Pierre-Gabriel Bieri, policy manager at the Centre Patronal.