Introduction by Catherine Vieilledent, Sec Gal UEF Groupe Europe
Today, we review 3 founding reports that have been presented this year, each with a different stress: one centered on European competitiveness (a complex, multifaceted concept), the other on leveraging the Single Market, the third on European defense.

All converge on a common diagnosis: the EU is losing ground worldwide and must urgently equip itself to address the challenges of a non-cooperative international environment, with traditional allies becoming economic rivals, neighbours turning into war mongers, third countries rallying to challenge the existing global status quo.

Under such changed circumstances, the EU’s strategic autonomy is an urgent and imperative task and the huge investment gap must be bridged (800 billion euros yearly) in order to deal with the green and digital transitions and to construct a credible defense. Together the 3 reports form an immense roadmap for the European Union and a renewed agenda for Ursula von der Leyen’s 2019 “geopolitical Commission”, now to grow into a geopolitical Union.
The 3 reports converge on the need to align EU policies like trade, competition, the fiscal union, the capital market by 2026, foreign and security policy in order to construct our strategic autonomy and remedy our dependencies. Most pressing is the need to unlock the EU’s financial capacity, settle the protracted debate on a sizeable European budget, with own resources, on a common debt or a deeper financialization of European savings with pension funds. The call is for the EU to get ready: despite its sizeable population and big, prosperous market, Europe lacks scale because it is fragmented; it lacks speed, due to poor governance and coordination, and it lacks focus because it is not united and it is not prepared.

The analysis may be cruel but on the other, it is a call for bold action. There is no proposed regression on decarbonation as key to cheaper energy, economic growth and a path towards restoring EU competitiveness. European defense industry, though highly competitive, must urgently address the need for aggregation and integration of capacities. Accelerated interconnectivity of energy, transport, telecoms and data in the Single Market, sectors long forgotten because they were deemed strategic, must unlock national markets that have become straightjackets: the EU today must respond to the challenge of continental scale markets, and repair fragmentation and underinvestment.

The reports make a very strong case for more unity, more cohesion in a better Union. They show the way towards the sovereign and democratic Federation that the Union of European Federalists, a supranational, non-governmental political organization has committed to since 1946. I am the Secretary Gal of UEF Group Europe, co-organiser
of this event as a multinational section of UEF created in the institutions for EU officials and staff in the 1970s and I am proud, also on behalf of UEF, to welcome our 4 distinguished speakers at this critical juncture in European history.

Report by Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero

The year 2024 has been marked by three important reports from Enrico Letta (Much More Than a Market), Mario Draghi (The Future of European Competitiveness) and Sauli Niinistö (Safer together: A path towards a fully prepared Union).

In the context of the return of Donald Trump to the White House, what lessons can be learned from those reports and for the future of Europe?

Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero from UEF.Be moderated the debate that was introduced by Catherine Vieilledent from UEF Groupe Europe.

Four speakers were intervening:  Domenec Ruiz Devesa, former MEP and President of UEF, Eric Phillipart, Sherpa for the Letta Report and Senior Expert at DG GROW, Valeria Ronzitti, Secretary General of the Services of General Interest and Luca Visentini, former Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation.

Among the insights on the Letta, Draghi and Niinistö reports that President von der Leyen quoted on 27/11/2024 in Strasbourg before her second Commission being approved by the European Parliament, one can remind:

• Europe should be more united to face Russian military threat, Chinese industrial competition and US led by D. Trump from 20 January 2025;
• 300 billion € of European savings are flying on the other side of the Atlantic (Letta). Why not creating a 28th EU stock-exchange in Europe to attract innovative companies?
• 800 billion € of EU bonds proposed by Draghi could relaunch the investments and the (cross-border) infrastructures in our Union;
• Security and resilience are particularly important in a cyber-threat geopolitical environment (Niinistö).

Some quotes from the UEF event:

• Corneille is back in Europe with the ‘CID’, the Clean Industrial Deal!
• Let’s be proud of our ‘competitiveness à l’ européenne’;
• Some ‘net-contributors to EU budget are great net winners in the Single Market’!
• Well-being of European citizens should be the priority of new economic policy; 
• Efforts should be done in Europe to stimulate innovation and productivity gains.

A European Constitution as proposed by Altieri Spinelli 40 years ago (or at least a major Treaty reform abolishing unanimity as requested by UEF President) would allow the EU to look forward at the next decades. Stronger together!