2024-10-07
13 分钟Geopolitical upheaval and increasing economic pressure have led to a rethink of the EU’s main priorities. Former ECB president Mario Draghi’s long-awaited report on the future of European competitiveness offers a blueprint for change – but can the EU shift its economic priorities and set a fresh course for growth? We’re joined by Sam Adams, economist in the UBS Global Wealth Management CIO, to discuss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Bulletin with UBS on Monocle Radio.
Each week, the sharpest minds and freshest thinkers in finance take you beyond the numbers and hype right to the heart of the big issues of the day.
Now, a number of our recent programs have understandably been focused on the United States and next month's presidential election in particular.
But today on the show we're crossing the pond and focusing on Europe.
There has been change afoot among policymakers in Brussels, the seat of many institutions that make up the European Union.
Geopolitical upheaval and increasing economic pressure have led to a rethink of the bloc's main economic policy priorities.
Two recent developments mean that these ideas might be shifting from abstraction into tangible change for the economy and those that invest in it.
First, Ursula von der Leyen was confirmed for a second five year term as the president of the European Commission with a mandate to redefine the EU's policy program.
Second, at von der Leyen's request, Mario Draghi, formerly president of the ecb, of course, and former prime Minister of Italy, delivered a detailed report on the future of European competitiveness.
The Draghi report outlines a blueprint for what this future might look like and advocates for more focus on economic competitiveness and and geopolitical autonomy.
So what are likely to be the implications for the economy, whether straight away or further down the track?
What sectors might be affected by the evolving policy?
And what will markets require in terms of detail and insight about individual proposals in order to react well?
To explain the backdrop, explore the report and ponder those potential impacts, we're lucky to welcome back to the show Sam Adams.
Sam's an economist in the chief Investment Office of UBS Global Wealth Management and author of a recent European economy paper on the Draghi report, subtitled A Paradigm Shift for Europe.
Sam Adams, welcome back to the show.
Let's start before we get into the details of the report by looking at the backdrop that geopolitical upheaval, increasing economic pressure.
Talk to us, Sam, about this view that the EU bloc was perhaps overdue a rethink of its economic policy priorities.
Time for a shift in those terms.
There definitely has been a bit of a shift in how we should think about economic policy and making sure that environmental policy, economic policy, innovation policy, all those very important goals are a bit more joined up because we have had these various crises, you could almost call it, over the last couple of years, from the pandemic to the war between Russia and Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis, the European growth performance slowly falling behind other economies and geopolitical rivals.