The Draghi Report on the Future of European Competitiveness: Challenges of Participation, Engagement and Economic Geography

"In this paper we examine the key insights and recommendations of the Draghi report, alongside those of the Letta report. We argue that many of the issues raised are relevant, timely, pertinent, and in some cases urgent. However, we also argue that the attainment of the recommended aims and objectives of the Draghi report are contingent on transition mechanisms, many of which are explicitly regional in nature. Looking through the lens of economic geography it becomes apparent that the implicit model of economic growth underpinning both the Draghi and Letta reports is a framework from the 1990s. However, in recent decades Europe has undergone profound changes to the economic geography of growth, many of which fundamentally change the foundations of the logic underpinning the Draghi report. The fact that neither the Draghi nor Letta reports acknowledge these profound changes means that both reports have to be reconsidered, and we argue that the processes and mechanisms for change are rather different to those which the reports acknowledge."