EU Members Call For Overhaul Of Single Market For Long-Term Competitiveness

Reuters has reported that ten European countries have written to the European Commission calling on the bloc to take measures to better compete with China and the United States in the long-term.

• The group, which includes Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Slovakia writes: "Political attention has been focused on short-term measures in view of high energy prices and more assertive global competition in the clean tech sector."
• "What the European Union needs now is a strategy on long-term competitiveness to keep up with our main global competitors in terms of economic output and productivity... which complements the Commission’s latest initiative of the Green Deal Industrial Plan."
• According to Reuters, the group says COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and the US Inflation Reduction Act have uncovered a broader problem of EU competitiveness and urged discussion at the EU Summit on March 23-24.
• The group says "reducing barriers and improving functioning of capital markets would improve capital allocation and support our companies and hence EU’s competitiveness," and particularly attention should be paid to the services sector, the Capital Market's Union project, and "clean tech" like hydrogen installations and battery production.