Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Major parties in the EU Parliament appear to back the ex-Italian premier Mario Draghi’s plans to boost sluggish EU growth.
Draghi, ex-head of the European Central Bank and ex-Prime Minister of Italy, is likely to issue his report on European competitiveness next week, potentially as early as Monday, but informed MEPs of his findings.
Why does the EPP support Draghi’s proposals?
“The great message that competitiveness is the number one issue … as the business party of Europe, we welcome this very much,” Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), said after the meeting. “The last five years were the Green Deal years … based on this [report], we open the next chapter,” he stated.
Weber, who represents the European Parliament’s largest political grouping, noted the need for Airbus-style European flagship schemes, and the need to ensure that environmental technologies like heat pumps and electric cars are developed in Europe rather than in the US or China.
How did the Green Group react to the Report?
“What I very much like … is that he indeed stands very clearly with European values” such as public services and climate change, stated Bas Eickhout, co-leader of the Parliament’s Green group. “He’s ringing the alarm bell very clearly.” “You will not see in the report anything mentioning of labour costs, because he said that’s not the problem,” Eickhout said – trying to address a criticism that the report will be utilised to justify cutting workers’ wages.
Instead, the report will examine Europe’s “complacency” in the wake of high energy and costs and low productivity in important high-tech sectors, he said.
In a remark, socialist group leader Iratxe García expressed that any economic relaunch required to be “built on quality jobs and affordable energy”, including a “Buy Green and European Act”.
Why is the Left group critical of Draghi’s conclusions?
Others, such as MEP Manon Aubry of the Parliament’s Left group, were engraved neither by Draghi’s conclusions nor his candour. “It was a presentation paying lip service which didn’t say much,” Aubry said after the meeting, adding that MEPs had been “left in the dark”.
“I’d like us to talk around competitiveness, but then we’d have to call into query the European trade policy that’s sold off our industry … there’s at minimum a hypocrisy if not a fundamental contradiction,” she expressed. “What is Mario Draghi’s democratic legitimacy to write such a report … did you, or anyone at all, elect him?” Aubry questioned.
