ERT delegation meets Professor Mario Draghi to discuss measures to revive Europe’s competitiveness

Milan, 10 January 2024: ERT welcomes that Professor Mario Draghi has been entrusted with the task¹ to draw up a plan to revitalise Europe’s competitiveness. A delegation of European business leaders will meet him in Milan on Wednesday.

The Chairs and CEOs in ERT’s Membership are significant employers leading European companies with operations worldwide. As innovators and investors in European regions, they have unique insights into the highly competitive global business environment at this time. A recent survey of ERT’s Membership by The Conference Board² highlighted how heavily Europe’s competitiveness is weighing on their confidence in the bloc.

As a cross-sectoral high-level forum, ERT’s focus is on the long-term industrial outlook for Europe. Topics on the agenda of the private meeting include:

• Pursuing turnaround in Europe’s competitiveness: As the digital and green transitions advance, ERT has highlighted its deeps concerns in its recent vision paper³. ERT has called for a much more holistic approach to its competitiveness – by improving the coherence of the European regulatory environment, creating the right conditions for investment in the EU and deepening the Single Market.
• Innovation: Innovation is the driving force for future competitiveness and prosperity – and provides solutions for many global challenges society is facing. To remain competitive, Europe has to put the business case for innovation at the centre of policymaking. ERT’s recommendations to improve Europe’s innovation leadership are available here.

The names of the CEOs & Chairs in the ERT delegation are listed in the PDF of this statement.

ENDS

Note to Editors:

¹ As announced by European Commission President von der Leyen in her State of the European Union speech last September.

² To find out more about the results of The Conference Board’s most recent (H2 2023) survey of the CEOs and Chairs in ERT, click here.

³ To view ERT’s vision paper Securing Europe’s place in a new world order, click here.