Europe at a crossroads, one year after the Draghi Report.
HCSS Strategic Analysts Ron Stoop and Berend Kwak joined the European Commission’s High-Level Conference: One Year After the Draghi Report: what has been achieved and what has changed in Brussels, 16 September 2025.
The day featured keynote speeches from President Ursula von der Leyen and Mario Draghi, alongside leading voices from academia, think tanks, business, and European institutions. A signing ceremony for the Clean Transport Corridor Initiative underlined Europe’s ambition to link competitiveness with the green transition.
The 6 key messages that stood out:
- The European single market remains incomplete—internal barriers still distort it by the equivalent of 45% tariffs on goods and 110% on services (IMF).
- A new approach to state aid is needed. In 2023, €190B was spent, often in ways that benefitted one country at the expense of its neighbors. Europe should learn from Japan’s concentrated chip-funding model and extend such approaches to other technologies to spur disruptive innovation.
- Europe as a frontrunner in AI: the EU aims to have start-ups gain access to future AI gigafactories for sector-specific applications. The private sector has already responded positively, with €230B in proposals.
- On energy, Europe must build a homegrown mix of renewables with nuclear as a backbone, and invest in eight bottlenecks for energy infrastructure—from the Pyrenees to the Trans-Balkan pipeline, and the Otranto Strait to the Sicilian Canal.
- Mercosur is still seen as a trade deal that can provide relief for exporters. Meanwhile, the ECB projects €1.3 trillion annually in defense investments between 2025–2031— both these examples underscoring the magnitude of Europe’s security challenge.
- Europe must move from broad strategies to strict deadlines and sustained political commitment, overcoming what Draghi called the tendency to present inertia as “respect for the law.”
Europe should get to work on all these areas as they are key to matching the speed and scale of competitors like the US and China.
Ron and Berend were invited thanks to their publication of the HCSS Draghi Report Series last year, which explores the long-term implications of Draghi’s recommendations.
👉 Keep an eye out for the second edition of this series, coming soon—reflecting on Draghi’s vision one year later.
Related Content
