Bulletin No50 septembre 2024 Mr. Draghi, former Vice-President of Goldman Sachs Europe, who was successively inducted as head of the Bank of Italy, then of the European Central Bank, leads the Italian government (February 2021) which resigns following a conflict among its political supporters. The elections, which follow, open the path to power to Ms. Meloni, president of Fratelli d'Italia.
It is always useful to examine the career paths of these great sages who are asked for wise advice. In a word, Mr. Draghi began by working for big international capital and ended up opening the way to power for the Italian far right through the subtlety of his government's social and economic measures. A rather exemplary career path, in short.
He returned to the forefront to present a report on the competitiveness of the European Union economy, commissioned by the European Commission. Our man claims to have nightmares when he thinks about the dark future of the European Union, which is lagging far behind its rivals, the United States of America and China. If nothing is done, with worrying demographics and a mass of retirees to feed, then the European social model will be over, in a context of general impoverishment.
It is therefore time for action. Our expert estimates that an additional global investment of 800 billion euros is necessary from the member countries of the European Union (i.e. approximately 5 points of the Union's GDP), three times more than the Marshall Plan, he indicates curiously because there is no connection between this plan and its historical period of implementation and today. To facilitate the implementation of this investment plan (public and private), the former Goldman Sachs executive recommends a unification of capital markets (under discussion for 10 years) in order to direct European savings towards strategic investments, he assures. The link is not very clear but more with the idea of developing "common" financing, in other words, establishing a European Union debt market with a view to deepening federalism, at least financial. A great promise for financial capital.
In perspective, the Draghi report shows that since the beginning of the century, the European Union has failed to fulfil its promises. In Lisbon, in March 2000, the heads of government of the Union intended to make the European Union "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth accompanied by more and better jobs and greater social cohesion".
After the 2008 crisis, Agenda 2020 confirmed the failure of the Lisbon Strategy but still planned (!) to adapt it to the context of the economic and financial crisis. Once again, the European Union planned to "build growth based on knowledge, sustainability and social cohesion by redoubling efforts in R&D, developing skills, expanding smart grids and the digital economy, modernising industry and improving energy efficiency and moderation in the use of scarce resources" .
In a word, the Draghi report is part of the incantatory tradition of the European Union. However, it could excite some people to the extent that it would break the taboo of budgetary balances and would not shy away from the prospect of increasing debt. Mr Draghi's proposals could even be seen as a European "New Deal" [1] .
However, the difficulties of the European Union's production system in the face of its competitors are the result of the choices of its Capital. Clearly, the community should come to the aid of the person responsible for the industrial weakness, the sluggishness of activity. The choices of relocation of production, reduction of research budgets, late start of production of new products (see the case of European industry) naturally lead to the situation denounced by Mr. Draghi, to whom we would be justified in asking what he has done during the last twenty years.
The investment funds advocated by Mr Draghi risk filling the Danaïdes barrel like the public financing of the “gigafactories” in Sweden and elsewhere, intended to produce batteries for the automobile sector and which are proving to be industrial failures. We would say the same thing for the very promising hydrogen economy, which made the eyes shine, mainly of those who knew nothing about chemistry.
Another hobby horse: the ambition of digital sovereignty. While the administrations of the various member countries of the European Union have already digitized a multitude of its processes without worrying too much about the origin of its suppliers, always the same ones. A phenomenal quantity of European data of all kinds is stored... in the United States.
Airbus is the only major industrial success of the last few decades and the European Union has nothing to do with it. The European Commission has been primarily concerned with liberalisation to give Capital some additional latitude to accumulate and European Capital has not been the only one to benefit from this.
Mr Draghi and his ilk, the capital's auxiliaries, may now feel that they have overreached. Their low credibility, except among diehard social democrats, puts the model imposed on the world of work at risk, and in this perspective, the promotion of the extreme right is not a coincidence.
However, Mr. Draghi is careful not to clearly indicate who will decide what. In a vague flash of lucidity, Mr. Piketty protests against the subsidies and public financing recommended: "However, we can legitimately think that Europe (the European Union, ed.) must on the contrary seize the opportunity to develop other modes of governance and avoid giving, once again, full powers to large private capitalist groups to manage our data, our energy sources or our transport networks."
But who else has full powers when it comes to Mr Draghi and the European Union?
[1] “New Deal”: economic policy implemented by President Delano Roosevelt to revive the American economy hit by the 1929 crisis, based on public investment, particularly in infrastructure.