Draft Draghi to save the single market, says French MEP

BRUSSELS — The European Union needs to draft in Mario Draghi, the mastermind behind reforms to revive its single market, to ensure that member countries rally behind efforts to boost growth and prosperity, a senior European lawmaker said Tuesday.

Member countries should “mandate Draghi” to build political consensus for reform and pierce through national “deep state” resistance to force a radical rethink of the single market project, Pascal Canfin, a French Renew MEP, told POLITICO’s Competitive Europe Summit in Brussels.

“We need somebody that could do so at the very top level, with heads of state and government and quite deep state level,” Canfin said, arguing that the bloc has reached a “historical crossroads” where it must choose between deeper integration or economic irrelevance.

In 2024, the former Italian Prime Minister and head of the European Central Bank delivered a report on Europe’s competitiveness deficit that one commissioner has referred to as the “bible” for Ursula von der Leyen’s second Commission.

EU leaders backed a plan to relaunch the 30-year old single market — with its freedoms in the movement of goods, capital, services and people — at a summit earlier this month.

According to Canfin, Draghi’s work is not yet done, and the former Italian leader could build a “coalition of the willing” of member states willing to integrate their economies. Canfin also suggested that the requirement for consensus among all 27 member states has become a challenge. 

“It’s not an objective not to do it at 27, but maybe at the end, we will not be able to do it for political reasons,” Canfin said, specifically citing the frequent vetoes and disruptions caused by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

The move toward a multi-speed Europe is increasingly viewed by proponents of integration as the only way to compete with the massive industrial subsidies and streamlined decision-making of the United States and China.

Canfin described a recurring cycle of political failure where national leaders travel to Brussels and make commitments, only to see them disassembled at home.

“They go to Brussels … then they go back home, and there are all the people locally, in Paris, in Berlin, in Rome, in Madrid, saying the opposite,” Canfin said. “Including in the deep state, including in some companies that have built the knowledge to manage and navigate complexity.”

Canfin identified three obvious candidates for accelerated integration: defense, energy, and finance. 

“The political will has always been in the hands of the capitals,” Canfin said. “Technical, yes, but today, would we be politically able?”