New initiative forms to push for open and competitive markets in the EU
Europe Unlocked will campaign for greater focus on competitiveness, a stronger Single Market and it will fight against the drift towards protectionism in the EU.
A broad coalition of organisations representing European businesses both large and small launched under the name Europe Unlocked today, to push European policy makers to address serious weaknesses in Europe’s economy.
The Europe Unlocked initiative continues to grow and the organisations whose names appear below were members at the time of launch.
At the time of the global financial crisis the EU and the US economies were roughly the same size. However, by 2020 the EU economy was significantly below the level of the US and this divergence continues (International Monetary Fund, GDP figures).
“This trend is alarming,” said Kieran O’Keeffe, Executive Director of Europe Unlocked.
Over the past decade the European economy has lurched from one crisis to another. The global financial crisis of 2008 was followed by a European currency crisis and unfortunately many others since, not least the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The risk is that exceptional measures that were needed to address the crises will bEuropeecome the norm. “That mustn’t happen. It is time the EU re-established some of the core elements that underpin the Union – in particular, the Single Market” Mr O’Keeffe said, adding: “Under the current European Commission the Single Market has been neglected.”
Looking ahead to a new European Commission and the European Parliament elections in 2024, Europe Unlocked will push for a radical re-think of how to boost productivity, and therefore prosperity across the continent.
Europe needs to embrace competition and trade, ensure that the green and digital transitions deliver productive and sustainable outcomes, and help prepare Europe’s workforce with the skills needed to compete in a modern, global economy, the Europe Unlocked initiative will argue.
Productivity is by far the biggest, and the only sustainable driver of economic growth in the long-term. The prosperity that would result from a more productive economy would in turn strengthen Europe’s security.
“The current Commission is too keen to treat the EU as a war-time economy. Europe should not run its economy from a bunker. We need a positive and confident policy programme from the next Commission which puts open and competitive markets at its heart,” Mr O’Keeffe said.
Current Members:
- Confederation of Danish Industry
- Confederation of Finnish Industries
- Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic
- Confederation of Swedish Enterprise
- The Czech Chamber of Commerce
- Dansk Erhverv (The Danish Chambers of Commerce)
- The Estonian Employers Confederation
- European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME
- The European Round Table for Industry
- The European Services Forum
- The European Small Business Alliance
- The Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists
- The Norwegian Confederation of Business and Industry
- The Polish Confederation Lewiatan