In a few decades, will Europe be good for anything beyond food and tourist experiences? With Europe lagging on innovation, productivity and with extremely costly decisions on the Energy side, and needing to defend itself, what is next?

Navigation:

1. Intro (01:34 )


2. New report out from Mario Draghi


3. Profound mistakes in Energy initiatives increasing costs and competitiveness


4. Dalio and Lee Kuan Yew comments


5. Lack of growth in Europe, lack of creation of new European champions


6. Too much protection for employees?


7. Too Complex regulations around companies and innovation initiatives are too bureaucratic


8. Conclusion

Our co-hosts:

• Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt


• Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro

Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

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Nuno Goncalves Pedro

Welcome to Episode 60 of Tech DECIPHERED. Today, we will discuss European competitiveness. The competitiveness of all of Europe, not just the European Union, but the whole of Europe. It’s been in the news recently. There’s been a new report out from Mario Draghi a couple of months ago that really mentions what is happening in Europe, what are the things that need to be done for Europe to increase its competitiveness going forward.

Nuno Goncalves Pedro

There have been a lot of discussions around the world on Asia, in particular, and American dominance of the world economy. Europe is lagging behind. What do we make out of all of this? Maybe let’s start with the report out from Mario Draghi and the conclusions of that report.

Bertrand Schmitt

Yes, I think it was for once, a pretty interesting and pretty lucid report from a commission by the European Commission and written by Mario Draghi with a lot of support from many CEOs and also entrepreneurs to provide feedback to try to explain what’s happening, what’s going on. I would agree with everything in terms of analysis or conclusion, but I must say it’s a good read.

Bertrand Schmitt

Maybe a few points that he’s making is first acknowledging that there is an issue in European competitiveness and growth since the past 20, 25 years. This lack of competitiveness and growth has increased with a great financial crisis from 2008-2012. In 2012, there was a crisis around the euro. I think it is indeed time to try to look back at what happened and try to get some sense about what could be done differently going forward.

Nuno Goncalves Pedro

A couple of really astute observations. Obviously, the GDP growth of Europe has lag behind that of the US and China. The period of time from 2002-2023, the US has grown 2% and both on constant prices and constant PPP prices. China, 8.3% and the EU, 27 at 1.4%. Obviously this report is on the EU. Clearly lagging, and the lag is significant.

Nuno Goncalves Pedro

If we look