ANTWERP/BRUSSELS, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The European Union must simplify its regulations to make the bloc more competitive in relation to countries such as the United States and China, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said ahead of summits of EU political and business leaders.
EU growth has been persistently lower than that of the United States over the past two decades, with EU productivity and innovation, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, falling short of expectations.
‘Let me go back to the US example. A financial system, a financial capital’, said von der Leyen this Wednesday. ‘Here in Europe, we don’t just have 27 different financial systems, each with its own supervisor. We also have more than 300 trading platforms across the Union. This is fragmentation on a massive scale. We need a big, deep and liquid capital market.’
Take advantage of the stock market rise!
Before EU leaders gather in a Belgian castle on Thursday to discuss how they can compete economically with China and the US as the rules-based world order disintegrates, some leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will meet this Wednesday with business chiefs for an industry summit to hear the demands of European companies.
Companies such as Europe’s largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal, construction materials company Heidelberg Materials and chemicals group Solvay will advocate stronger EU action to stem industrial decline.
Among the calls from business leaders are that the EU tackle high energy prices in Europe and intervene to stimulate demand for low-carbon products.
Continues after advertising
‘The positive side of Europe’s problems is that Europe could actually solve them on its own if it wanted to. Because a lot of it has to do with flexibility, less bureaucracy, more flexible labor laws,’ Siemens Energy chief executive Christian Bruch told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Lili Bayer, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Julia Payne, Jan Strupczewski and A Lennon in Brussels and Sarah Marsh and Christoph Steitz in Berlin)
