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During an informal meeting of the EU member states in Denmark this October, a special sub-event took place – the Competitiveness Summit – at which both the Commission President and European corporate community leaders once again revealed the EU-wide opinion on complex competitiveness’ issues.
Background
Europe is deeply involved in the present geo-political and -economic instability and growing security threats: the EU-wide future security as well as competitiveness depend on the continent’s ability to innovate and lead in next-generation technologies, allowing the states to build a more resilient, secure, healthy, clean and digital future.
The specific sub-summit titled “The Copenhagen Pledge” has encouraged the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament to “execute ambitious reforms that foster innovation, investments, technological infrastructure, clean and just transition, and security.
To accelerate the EU-wide circular and sustainable development (including the Clean Industrial Deal), the EU 2040 climate target and the post-2030 climate architecture must be designed in order to implement incentives to strengthen European competitiveness and security. Besides, the decarbonisation process must be cost-efficient with the emissions trading system (ETS) as a central mechanism. These and other measures should go in hand with a technology-driven approach scaling all clean technologies towards lower dependency on imported fossil fuels and climate-neutrality by 2050, including effective carbon leakage protection.
Specifically, the European business leaders made two vital suggestions:
1. A true European Savings and Investments Union, SIU should be established by 2030 to improve access to private capital markets and channel capital to key strategic investment areas. Reforms to national pension systems and tax policies should also further encourage private capital flows into European markets.
More on SIU in: https://www.integrin.dk/2025/09/30/eus-savings-and-investments-union-two-new-initiatives/
2. In order to close European innovation gap, the EU member states must commit to investing at least 3% of GDP in research and innovation in shared responsibility with the industrial sectors. This ambition must be matched by a significant increase in R&I funding in the MFF 2028–2034,
with strong emphasis on scaling innovations across the EU states.
Main source “Declaration of the Competitiveness Summit-the Copenhagen Pledge” at: https://www.danskindustri.dk/globalassets/kampagnesites/eu-formandskab/ccs_declaration_web.pdf
Declaration’s focal points
The declaration included several vital points concerning:
= First, competitiveness and decarbonisation; the Commission has already started with the Clean Industrial Deal and the regulatory simplification process, as well as with speeding up of the permitting procedures, etc. The Commission has set up a startup and scale-up fund that is badly needed for the member states’ innovative startups to grow in the European Union. Besides the EU is proposing for the next long-term budget a competitiveness fund of €400 billion precisely to boost competitiveness and to combine public and private capital resources.
= Second, innovation: the EU strategy is to significantly increase support for promoting available talented people in the member states in order to support breakthrough innovations that allow the states to take an idea from concept to market, i.e. to get much better returns and added values. For example, the Commission proposed to double the budget of the Horizon Europe program as the cornerstone of boosting the EU-wide innovation process.
= Third issue is dealing with the energy issues and the structurally too high costs of energy: thus, the EU regards it is vital to reduce the states economy’s dependency on the volatility of the global market; hence, the Commission supports investing “in homegrown, cheaper energy sources from nuclear to renewable”, because in this way the states would define themselves the price of energy. As is known, on the global markets, the EU energy dependencies could be easily weaponized; however, it is also true, that gas is still a base load that the states will need, “but the other energy sources have to be boosted even further”. Hence, the Commission has prepared the Affordable Energy Action Plan, which includes other broader aspects such as investment in grids and interconnectors.
= Fourth, an important point on the capital market is that it is “too fragmented”: the Commission wants the EU-wide financial services to become a vital component of the Single Market. This is why the Commission launched the Savings and Investment Union, the SIU (see reference above). It is known that the EU citizens are “world champion in savings, but certainly not world champion in investing”; this issue shall be addressed firmly. Provided that the regulatory and financial environment in the member states are enhanced through commitments to industry, competitiveness and innovation, the European businesses are committed to investing more. Thus, about 30 leading European companies presented at the sub-summit and representing about €700 billion revenues, have already indicated their support for the declaration. On average, these companies stand ready to increase investment levels in Europe by about 50 percent by 2030: i.e. they are committed to invest more in Europe over the coming years, contributing to unlocking the additional potential needed to reach the full 50 percent-increase towards 2030.
However, this increase in investment will only be realized in full if the policy guidelines mentioned in the declaration are implemented: thus, if all large European companies “match this level of investment increase”, the EU “would be on track to about €800 billion annual investment” to reduce the existing gap, outlined in the Draghi report.
More on Draghi report in: https://www.integrin.dk/2024/09/09/eu-wide-competitiveness-challenges-and-perspectives-in-draghi-report/ 1`
= Fifth, the defence issue, which needs a massive surge in defence investment: hence, the Commission has unlocked about €800 billion of investment by 2030 in the SAFE program, covering the joint procurement and the national escape clause. Besides, the Commission drafts a regulatory omnibus for defence, including the simplification process in the defence sector, in order to facilitate the scale up and production facilities in faster and cheaper modes.
Then, the issue of “defence industrial readiness”: the member states need a ramped-up, resilient and innovative EU-wide defence industry; thus, is where the defence omnibus to simplify the procedures and speeding-up the whole process will be used. However, the defence industry needs a strong and complex system composed not only of industry, but also of technology start-ups and academia: with this in mind, the Commission proposed the establishment of a new Technology Alliances to connect tech innovators with defence sectors.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_25_2278
= Sixth, the simplification in connection with the EU-wide and the national-level’s deregulation process. Although, the Commission has had already six regulatory omnibuses on the pipeline, since last February, none of them has yet arrived at implemented stage, because the EU co-legislators also have to do their job and they have to come to agreements: thus, so far, no significant changes appeared. But these six omnibuses represent a reduction of €8 billion in bureaucratic burden, and the EU community is waiting when the co-legislators would finally agree, concluded the Commission President.
Reference and citations from:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/da/speech_25_2272