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After a year of extensive discussions withing the EU institutions and in the member states’ governance’s systems concerning the famous M. Draghi’s report suggestions, the Commission decided to make a “running account” of the EU-wide basic visions for facilitating the competition process. It is quite notable that the Commission’s approach to vital competitiveness issues is about “jobs, peoples’ salaries, profits for companies and about European way of life”; the EU’s executive branch has made some clarifications along the process.
Revealing most vital points
Commission President revealed at a recent conference three points concerning European competition in the world:
= The first point is that of “closing the innovation gap with the US and China”; the global competition for technological leadership is being fundamentally reshaped by artificial intelligence’s race and the global leadership in AI models and services is in full swing. As to the EU-27, it is “not only a challenger but a leader in many fields that will define this race”.
E.g. in the computing power, the EU member states have acquired “some of the best supercomputers in the world”; however, global digital technology giants continue to build larger and faster computers, the EU “managed to strengthen its global ranking. Thus, for example, six years ago, the EU has had 2 supercomputers among the global top 10; but already starting from 2020, the EU started massive investments in high performance computing facilities.
As a result, the EU states are having presently 4 supercomputers in the global top 10. There are two good examples, noted the President, i.e. the launch in 2024 Jupiter in Germany and HPC6 in Italy; all that shows that the “EU policies and investment in this field are starting to pay off”.
The President also reminded that European companies are becoming “top-of-the-league on many AI applications”: e.g. the Lovable (a Swedish AI app) can turn anyone’s ideas into fully functioning apps or websites. According to Commission, it became the fastest software company in history in summer 2024, to reach $100 million in annual revenue; it is presently valued almost $4 billion. Last June, 10% of all new websites in the world were made with Lovable; this year, the number of European businesses adopting AI has risen by 67% on a year-on-year basis, added the Commission President.
Note. Most vital AI models in the world, according to Forbes, are slightly different; see:
https://www.integrin.dk/2025/09/15/digital-technologies-and-ai-models-profitable-means-for-corporate-entities/
The EU is already engaged in the “global digital race” by employing digital infrastructures at the service of industry and innovators with the assistance of EU supercomputers: the EU has created several AI Factories and is going to upgrade the best of them into Gigafactories. This initiative’s implementation would assist innovative start-ups in the member states economies in accessing the needed computing power in testing and training their AI models. The EU’s private sector actively participated in the process: the Commission’s initial goal was to mobilize €20 billion in investment to develop the gigafactories; presently the sector invested €230 billion.
The EU’s mission for the coming decade is to make Europe one of the leading AI continents; to reach the goal, the member states have “to create a virtuous circle, where investment feeds innovation, and innovation attracts more investment”. This idea is behind the EU’s new Competitiveness fund, as the centerpiece of the European long-term budget with a proposed over €400 billion, which “includes a rise of twice more money for research five times more money than today for digital, and six times more for clean technologies”.
The President also mentioned some challenges involved in the innovation issues: first, the EU-wide Single Market is far from complete, e.g. internal barriers within the Single Market are equivalent to a 45% tariff on goods and a 110% tariff on services, according to the IMF. The Commission has announced a Single Market Roadmap to 2028, with the aim to increase the pace and speed-up the processes by connecting the EU efforts on capital, services, energy, telecoms (as well as the “fifth freedom” for knowledge and innovation, as well as the 28th regime for innovative companies) with concrete timelines.
= The second point is a joint plan for decarbonisation and competitiveness, which starts with reducing EU’s dependence on imported fossil fuels and bringing down energy costs as the EU citizens and businesses pay higher bills compared to their competitors. As soon as the cost of energy is dictated by global markets, the EU has taken a different approach: i.e. using the so-called “homegrown energy resources”, such as renewables and the nuclear energy; it gives the states the needed energy security and independence, while creating good jobs. During 2024, the EU-27 has achieved impressive progress, notes the Commission: first, by launching a Wind Package, the states managed to cut permitting times by two thirds; second, through the renewables – in the first half of 2025, the investment in the EU-wide wind energy source hit an all-time high with over €40 billion. Presently, over 70% of EU electricity comes from low-carbon sources: as a result, in 2024 the states reduced fossil fuel bills by €60 billion, which is the sign that cut prices and dependencies can be achieved at the same time.
However, the energy prices remain still too high and volatile in the EU member states: in some, the electricity costs three times more than in others; but the price spikes could be avoided, if energy sources could flow more freely among the states by closely integrating national grids. The EU institutions have already started to address this issue: e.g. the European Parliament has approved the Commission proposal to use Cohesion Funds to boost energy infrastructure; and many projects are already advancing, like the Celtic interconnector, that will soon end Ireland’s isolation from the European grid. The Biscay Bay project is to double energy capacity between France and Spain; additionally supported by the EU Grids Package and a new Energy Highways initiative to focus on numerous EU-wide energy infrastructure’s bottlenecks: from the Pyrenees to the Trans-Balkan pipeline, from the Øresund Strait to the Sicilian Canal, etc.
With the EU Clean Industrial Deal and the Battery Booster package, the member states are able to tackle main energy hurdles, e.g. as batteries are a key enabler of all other clean tech issues, the EU will invest €1.8 billion for equity to expand production in Europe.
= The third point is about the need to reduce the member states and the EU-wide dependencies: first, it is about the diversification of supplies; during 2024, the EU has reached new trade deals with Mercosur, Mexico and Switzerland. The agreement with Mercosur, for instance, will create a market of 770 million consumers and roughly one quarter of global GDP. The Commission has secured an initial agreement with a mining giant like Indonesia, and discussing cooperation with India to conclude a deal by the end of 2025.
The EU is also advancing by-lateral trade agreements with South African, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, etc. and the Union’s economic security has a crucial role in all these deals. Together with trade comes investment: the EU is creating a network of strategic projects across the world to secure supplies: e.g. nickel in Canada, that is enough to produce over 800,000 EV batteries every year, agreement with Kazakhstan on graphite, for another 100,000 EV batteries/year, and/or the strategic Lobito Corridor to Africa’s copper belt.
Secondly, as soon as reaching a true EU-wide economic security needs active work at national level: thus, in 2025, the Commission has selected 47 strategic projects in the states under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act to provide financial support on some crucial endeavors, such as copper and cobalt mining in Finland, lithium processing in Portugal and battery recycling in Italy.
Besides, the Commission is particularly interested in recycling, as the circular economy trend becomes the focal point in the Union’s security of supply; thus, presently, the member states using a kilogram of raw materials can produce 33 percent more output than in the US, and 400 percent more than in China. Recycling policy is the direction for the states concerning active work in implementing the EU Circular Economy Act in order to secure strategic independence with the help of circular production: i.e. “literally turning waste into the critical enabler of our competitiveness”, underlined the Commission President.
Finally, the President noted the competitiveness agenda’s complex and cross-sectoral issues, which needed urgent actions: e.g. better conditions for the corporate community. In this regard, the Commission initiated “simplification efforts” to prepare six simplification packages, the so-called omnibuses; e.g. two are already on the way: on digital and military mobility, with less paperwork, less overlaps and less complex rules.
The proposal is to cut €8 billion a year of bureaucratic costs for European companies, to provide an urgent support for the Savings and Investments Union and several trade agreements. Besides, the Commission is presently working on a new version of the EU-wide competition policy.
Main reference and used citations from: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/da/speech_25_2102