Rethinking the Role of the EU in European Competitiveness

The aim of this conceptual paper is to delineate the scope and give directives towards higher levels of competitiveness and prosperity for EU members. The EU integration history and challenges are retraced and the EU’s current competitiveness context is presented. In a second step, a new competitiveness strategy for the EU is suggested. The EU needs to transform its approach towards upgrading the microeconomic assets and capabilities that drive firm-level productivity and innovation. These are by nature highly context-dependent consequently requiring deep local and national leadership. EU institutions can help but need to encourage differentiation and uniqueness, not prescribe generic EU-wide policy priorities, while at the same time, EU institutions remain critical in securing the Single Market and coordinating policies with strong cross-border spillovers. Most reports have remained silent about why the European integration effort has run into problems, how the approach towards integration needs to change, and what value Europe will be able to provide to Europeans if it follows this new path. This paper highlights ways to overcome the EU shortcomings in impacting its members’ competitiveness and prosperity levels.