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we must strengthen European sovereignty
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FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writers are the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany
In a few weeks, we Europeans will begin to define our agenda for the next EU term. Looking back at the challenges of the last five years – be it the pandemic, the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine or the growing geopolitical changes – it is clear: Europe is living its Zeitenwende. We cannot take for granted the foundations on which we have built our European way of life and our role in the world. Our Europe is deadly and we must rise to the challenge.
Strengthening our global competitiveness and increasing our resilience, while making the Green Deal and the digital transition a success, is at the heart of responding to these challenges. To this end, France and Germany today propose a renewed boost to competitiveness for the EU’s next mandate.
Europe must prosper as a strong, world-class industrial and technological leader, while simultaneously implementing our ambition to make the EU the first climate-neutral continent. We can harness the potential of the green and digital transitions to develop the markets, industries and good jobs of the future.
To fulfill these common ambitions, Germany and France are convinced that the EU needs more innovation, more single market, more investment, more level playing field and less bureaucracy.
Together, we will advocate for strengthening the EU’s sovereignty and reducing our critical dependencies, whilst building on the successful implementation of the agenda developed since the Versailles Summit in March 2022. With an ambitious industrial policy, we can enable development and deployment of essential technologies. of the future, such as AI, quantum technologies, space, 5G/6G, biotechnologies, net zero technologies, mobility and chemicals. We must fully leverage and significantly accelerate existing EU instruments, from important projects of common European interest to the role of public procurement, considering a more strategic approach in relevant sectors, and modernize our competition rules for global competitiveness.
We call for strengthening the EU’s technological capabilities, promoting cutting-edge research and innovation and the necessary infrastructure, including those related to artificial intelligence and health.
One of Europe’s greatest competitive strengths is the single market, which allows companies to develop innovative products and services, grow and compete, whilst ensuring high standards. We need to reap all its benefits with a modernized single market, reducing fragmentation and barriers, promoting connectivity, improving skills, promoting mobility and convergence.
We call for an ambitious bureaucracy reduction agenda that allows for simpler and faster administrative procedures and reduces bureaucratic burdens for companies of all sizes. We welcome the European Commission’s initiative to reduce our companies’ reporting obligations by 25 percent. This promise must be implemented with specific legislation. The principles of subsidiarity and proportionality also need a fresh start.
We will jointly support an ambitious, robust, open and sustainable European trade policy that enables fair trade agreements and promotes EU interests, creates reciprocal market access opportunities and clear and level playing field with our trading partners. The EU must continue to defend the rules-based multilateral trading system and act in support of fair competition.
We will fully decarbonize our energy systems. And we will achieve this in a fully integrated and interconnected market, while respecting national choices regarding the respective energy mix. This is the European way — and it will increase resilience, security of supply and pave the way for more sovereignty.
Finally, our collective investment efforts, both private and public, must match our ambitions. We need to unlock the full potential of our capital markets. Too many companies looking to finance their growth look across the Atlantic. Too many European savings are being invested abroad and not in Europe’s most promising start-ups and scale-ups. To mobilize the necessary investments, we must get serious about a truly integrated European financial market, with banking and capital markets union at its core, addressing fragmentation and ensuring the global competitiveness of the European financial sector.
In doing so, we will need to relaunch the European securitization market, improve the convergence and efficiency of capital markets supervision across the EU, harmonize relevant aspects of corporate insolvency frameworks and tax legislation, simplify the regulatory framework and develop a simple and effective cross-border investment and savings product for everyone. Private and public investments need to go hand in hand. We should future-proof the EU budget and give greater priority to investments in transformational spending and European public goods, while working on introducing new “own resources” as agreed in 2020.
Together, we call for this agenda to be placed at the center of the next term. The EU is our common future.