The Italian coined the famous phrase “whatever it takes” during the euro crisis.
(Photo: AP)
Brussels Mario Draghi’s return to the international stage has been rumored for a long time, and now the time has come. The former ECB president and Italian head of government will be the new EU special representative for competitiveness. He is supposed to develop proposals on how Europe can keep up with the USA and China in the investment race.
Europe will do “everything that is necessary” to maintain its competitiveness, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) in her “State of the Union” speech on Wednesday. It was an allusion to Draghi’s famous sentence from 2012, when the then head of the ECB calmed the financial markets during the euro crisis with the promise of “whatever it takes”. Since then, Draghi has been nicknamed “Super Mario”.
Von der Leyen managed a real surprise with the personnel. At the beginning of the year, she wanted to win the Italian as EU special envoy for the “Global Gateway” project, with which the EU is trying to push back China’s influence. At that time, Draghi politely declined.
However, making Europe more competitive seems to him to be a worthwhile task. Draghi has never shied away from big missions. The 76-year-old first mastered the euro crisis and later led his country through the pandemic as prime minister. Von der Leyen praised him as “one of the greatest economists in Europe”.
His recommendations for increasing competitiveness are likely to go in a certain direction: More Europe. Draghi is convinced that the EU needs to grow even closer together in order to take advantage of the advantages of the internal market and the monetary union.
Draghi wants Brussels to have more freedom of action when it comes to investments
In a guest article in The Economist last week, he advocated making more joint investment decisions. The “center” must be able to make more spending decisions.
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He cited the USA as a model, where the federal government in Washington can launch huge programs such as the “Inflation Reduction Act”, while in Europe the national finance ministers always restrict Brussels’ freedom of action.
The Capital Markets Union is also likely to feature prominently in his proposals. The key, experts agree, is to open national pension funds more to the capital markets. Only in this way could the European capital markets achieve similar levels of liquidity as the USA and mobilize investments for the green and digital transformation of the economy.
Draghi has the advantage of being able to speak uncomfortable truths as a respected elder statesman. He has been in the European business long enough to know the lies of everyone involved. It is to be hoped that he will make use of his freedom. The big question will then be whether his recommendations will be implemented – or whether the report will disappear in the drawer unread.
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