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With this one I bring to an end a relatively long series of articles in which I have briefly analysed the document presented by the European Commission last week and called A Compass for Competitiveness; a kind of new Green Deal, which is both a break with the objectives set five years ago and a push towards them. In short, a document that has been created with the aim of putting an end to the political movements critical of the green deal, without actually coming into conflict with the European left.
There is no doubt that the European defence industry is already a political priority for the Member States. This is even more the case following the victory of Donald J. Trump in the United States, who has already made clear his desire to stop being the economic mainstay of NATO and the UN, demanding that military partners increase their spending and investment. However, the Commission does not clarify anything about how, when, who and where it can lead the joint efforts. Ukraine is still at war.
The Commission’s document supports the three pillars I have referred to in previous articles with five horizontal actions, which it says are necessary ‘to underpin competitiveness in all sectors’:
1. Simplify the regulatory environment, reducing the burden and favouring speed and flexibility. It is really not very credible that the European Commission and the European Parliament, which have been in a veritable regulatory torrent of regulations for more than 15 years, can successfully undertake this objective without a radical shift in political action which, at the moment, can only come from patriotic, conservative and reformist options. Basically because the document itself indicates that the Competitiveness Compass is going to be deployed in a good number of new Regulations that will inevitably bring new obligations.
The published Compass sets as objectives a 25% reduction in obligations or notification burdens for all companies and at least a 35% reduction for SMEs. It is quantifiable and therefore controllable, and it would be desirable for it to be achieved in the shortest possible period of time and not during the long five-year term of the mandate. Furthermore, this objective is not very ambitious since the mere notification is only the final part of a previous burden, which the Commission does not commit to eliminating, so in reality the impact will be minimal.
One of the most interesting issues in the document is the proposal to create a new business category between Small and Medium Enterprises and Large Enterprises, which would benefit most from these simplification actions or measures. We will see how the bureaucrats shape it and what consequences it has.
The black spot on this horizontal action is the idea of promoting a European digital identity, which is sure to clash with the sovereignty of nations and individual freedom.
2. Strengthening the single market, one of the issues that has been truly forgotten over the last few decades.
3. Financing all the actions indicated through a Union of Savings and Investment and the creation of a European Competitiveness Fund, which may sound very good but is not developed in the slightest.
4. Promoting skills and quality jobs, as well as an affordable housing plan. Seen in this light, there is little to oppose, although the precedents are not very positive. On this point, there is a clear clash with the Union’s lack of competence in the matter, which risks a new confrontation between Brussels, eager for power, and national governments. We fear that the promotion of skills will go hand in hand with measures to promote immigration, which will obviously be rejected by the population.
5. And finally, to improve policy coordination at EU and national level. The European Commission wants to develop what it calls a competitiveness coordination tool, in order to ‘align’ industrial and research policies and investments at national and EU level; which, we venture, will be a failure if coordination becomes centralised planning and programming.
Consequently, a mixture of grand declarations, fine words and apparently positive objectives, together with the maintenance of the objectives of forced decarbonisation, centralisation of decision-making and increased taxation, could derail the whole thing in the first stage. Of course, we will have to wait for the Commission’s concrete proposals, but anything that sounds like planning, strategies and legislation makes us imagine a new derailment.
The path to freedom is most certainly deregulation, setting targets for job creation and productivity, strengthening the primary and secondary sectors of the economy, protecting borders (which is protection for stable, quality employment) and national birth incentive programmes. That does not appear.