Draghi’s EU competitiveness plan set to be delayed until September

BRUSSELS — Mario Draghi’s long-awaited report on how to make the European Union’s economy more competitive is now likely to be delayed until September, according to people working with the former Italian prime minister.

Draghi, a grandee of EU politics who is famously credited with saving the euro as European Central Bank chief, has been tasked with drawing up a blueprint for overhauling the bloc’s rules to help businesses take on rivals in the United States and China.

His report to EU bosses in Brussels had been expected this month but it is now all-but certain to be pushed back to September, while Ursula von der Leyen is working full-time to secure the support she needs from MEPs to win a second term as European Commission President.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive, the people familiar with Draghi’s work said the report could be ready as soon as von der Leyen wants it. The question is when that will be.

“Most likely [the release] will take place in September,” one of Draghi’s aides told POLITICO, stressing that decisions on the timing are up to the European Commission. “Mr Draghi stands ready to comply with any request coming from the president’s office,” the person said.

A second person aware of the work on the report confirmed that it is more likely to be presented after the summer.

Von der Leyen, who commissioned Draghi to carry out the work, has been nominated for a second term running the EU’s executive arm by the bloc’s national leaders. But she faces a knife-edge European Parliament vote to confirm her appointment on July 18, just before most of Europe’s political elite break for summer vacation.

Ursula Von der Leyen, who commissioned Draghi to carry out the work, has been nominated for a second term. | Sedat Suna/Getty Images

The report will feed into a wider debate on what the EU needs to do for its next legislative term and it is expected to make a splash.

Draghi’s research was supposed to be presented at the end of June, just after the European election and just before EU leaders met to decide who should take top jobs for the next mandate. The publication date was then pushed into mid-July.

Both people told POLITICO that the report could be readied quickly if needed, with one saying it could be presented within two days and the other saying it only needed some fine-tuning.

The Commission hasn’t been clear about when the report should come. When reporters asked for a date, Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer simply answered: “I can’t.”

In a formal response to a French lawmaker on the report’s timing, von der Leyen said on July 8 that it “was still in the drafting stage.”

Expectations are high for what Draghi will propose. He’s one of the few well-respected EU policymakers to have held influential political and technocratic positions, serving as Italian prime minister when the country was deciding how to spend the EU’s pandemic recovery fund to boost growth.

“I would [expect] the Draghi report to be based on an analysis that explains why EU productivity growth has lagged, and uses this analysis to derive policy implications,” Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of the think tank Bruegel told POLITICO in May.