Draghi urges radical European Union reform requiring extra 800 billion

The European Union needs up to 800 billion euros ($884 billion) in additional investment per year to meet its key competitiveness and climate targets, according to a report from economist and politician Mario Draghi.

The bloc’s goals of bolstering its geopolitical relevance, social equality and decarbonization are being threatened by weak economic growth and productivity compared with the U.S. and China, the report states.

The wide-ranging study led by Draghi — who previously served as prime minister of Italy and president of the European Central Bank during the euro zone debt crisis — found EU priorities must include reducing energy prices, raising competitiveness and strengthening defense investment.

The EU must also adapt to a world where “dependencies are becoming vulnerabilities and it can no longer rely on others for its security,” the report found, citing the EU’s dependence on China for critical minerals, and China’s reliance on the EU for absorbing its industrial overcapacity.

The EU’s high level of trade openness will leave it exposed, f trends toward supply chain autonomy accelerate, the report continues. Roughly 40% of Europe’s imports come from a small number of suppliers which are difficult to replace, and around half of this volume originates from countries with which the bloc is not “strategically aligned,” it says.

“The EU will need to develop a genuine “foreign economic policy” that coordinates preferential trade agreements and direct investment with resource-rich nations, the building up of stockpiles in selected critical areas, and the creation of industrial partnerships to secure the supply chain of key technologies,” the report states.

The EU will need to ensure dependencies do not increase and look to “harness the potential of domestic resources through mining, recycling and innovation in alternative materials.”

Other goals include full implementation of the single market, which includes 440 million consumers and 23 million companies, by reducing trade friction.

The bloc must also seek to ensure its competition policy does not become a “barrier to Europe’s goals,” particularly in the technology sector. The European coalition must also facilitate “massive investment needs unseen for half a century in Europe,” through a mix of private finance and public support. The EU is meanwhile suffering an “innovation deficit” which must be tackled through reforms, the report states.

On steps to mobilize private finance, the report recommends transitioning the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) from a co-ordinator of national regulators into a single regulator for all EU securities markets able to focus on overarching goals, similar to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The EU’s total investment-to-GDP rate will…