The EU should work to mobilize private sector development forces instead of more public borrowing; German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Monday, welcoming the proposals in Mario Draghi’s report.

“However, the EU’s joint borrowing will not solve the structural problems,” Lindner said, adding that the main problem is not the lack of subsidies, but the bureaucracy and the planned economy.

Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, in his 400-page report presented today, points out that after the success of the historic recovery plan after the Covid pandemic, the EU should “continue issuing common debt instruments to finance common investment programs with the aim of increasing EU productivity and security’.

The European Union needs additional investments of 750-800 billion euros per year – corresponding to 5% of GDP -, much higher than the 1%-2% of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.

The European Union has been suffering from economic stagnation for a year and a half. Its performance in overcoming the crisis caused by the pandemic was lower than that of the US, as was the case with the 2008 financial crisis.

The lag is explained “mainly by the biggest slowdown in productivity in Europe” and represents a threat to its social model, warns Mario Draghi.

“If Europe fails to become more productive, we will be forced to make choices. We will not be able to simultaneously have a leading position in the field of new technologies, to be a model of climate responsibility and an independent actor on the international stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to revise down some or all of our ambitions. It is an existential challenge”.