Mario Draghi Urges Europe to Transform Crisis Into Unity (legrandcontinent.eu)

• Draghi raises estimated annual investment needs from €800B to €1.2T.
• He highlights three vulnerabilities: external demand exposure, strategic dependencies, technological lag.
• Calls for 'pragmatic federalism' to overcome EU governance weaknesses.

"Former ECB President Mario Draghi, after receiving the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, delivered a speech updating Europe's strategic investment needs from €800 billion to €1.2 trillion annually. He argued that the old assumptions of open trade, US security guarantees, and a stable international order have collapsed, leaving Europe in an 'asymmetric economy': open externally but with an incomplete internal market. This has resulted in excessive reliance on external demand, strategic dependencies (e.g., 60% of LNG imports from the US), and a technological lag, especially in AI. Draghi called for a 'pragmatic federalism' to break the vicious cycle of insufficient implementation and weak legitimacy."