Why Europe’s Economic Visions Fail to “Land”, and the Missing Actor That Could Change Everything - Letter to Sander Tordoir
To: Sander Tordoir, Centre for European Reform
From: R.M. Westerink
On Your Article:
For European Economic Policy, the New World Has Yet to Be Born
Subject: Turning Europe’s competitiveness diagnosis into operational strategy
1. The Value of Your Analysis
Your recent analysis on Europe’s economic vulnerabilities and strategic blind spots is one of the clearest articulations of how deeply the continent’s position has shifted. You make three contributions that stand out:
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You show how Europe’s mid-tech strengths—machinery, automotive, clean technologies, aerospace—are under structural threat from both Chinese overcapacity and US industrial acceleration.
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You highlight that high-tech capacity cannot emerge without healthy mid-tech ecosystems; Europe’s innovation future depends on industrial heritage rather than replacing it.
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You argue persuasively that Europe must rethink competition policy, trade defence, industrial priorities, and internal demand simultaneously—because none of these domains function in isolation.
This is a whole-system diagnosis. But Europe is structurally not a whole-system policymaker. And this is where the difficulty lies.
2. Why Visions Like Yours Struggle to “Land” in Europe’s Policy Machinery
The problem is not the quality of analysis—the diagnosis is strong.
The problem is where it must land to be operational.
Today, an integrated industrial vision has no single institutional entry point in Europe. Instead, it must simultaneously persuade:
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The European Council, which sets the political compass but is divided on industrial policy and fiscal capacity.
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The European Commission, where different directorates guard distinct mandates—competition, trade, industrial policy, research, state-aid rules—each with its own logic and veto players.
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National governments, which control the purse, state-aid discretion, and political risk.
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The European Parliament, which shapes regulatory direction but not strategic coherence.
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EU funding and innovation bodies, each with their own fragmented programming cycles and priorities.
In practice, this means a systemic vision “lands” everywhere and therefore lands nowhere in particular.
It gets broken into components, routed into specialised silos, and diluted through interinstitutional negotiation.
The European system was designed to prevent capture, distortion, or unilateralism. But this design also prevents the kind of integrated economic strategy that the US and China can execute—and that your analysis calls for.
This is why similar strategic visions, however compelling, rarely translate into actionable programs. The architecture itself dissipates the energy needed for transformation.
In short:
Europe’s institutions can respond to specific issues, but they cannot internalise a systemic competitiveness diagnosis.
And that is why—structurally—this cannot work through policymaking channels alone.
3. The Missing Actor: A Cross-Sector Coalition of European Enterprises
If policymakers cannot generate the necessary coherence, the initiative must come from those who directly face the consequences of inaction: Europe’s strategic enterprises.
These include three groups:
(1) Mid-tech industrial champions
Automotive, machinery, chemicals, robotics, aviation—firms whose global competitiveness is eroding under asymmetric competition conditions. These are also Europe’s R&D backbone.
(2) Emerging strategic high-tech players
Semiconductors, batteries, clean tech, AI, digital infrastructure. These sectors need scale, pooled demand, and predictable industrial frameworks—none of which Europe currently provides.
(3) Critical supply-chain ecosystem firms
Precision tool makers, advanced optics, mechatronics, specialty chemicals—actors like Zeiss or Trumpf whose decline would unravel Europe’s innovation ecosystems.
These companies share one reality:
their future depends on Europe adopting the integrated strategic logic you outline.
Yet they currently operate through fragmented national or sector-specific lobbies. No coalition expresses the systemic interest of European industry as a whole.
Europe urgently needs such a coalition—not to defend narrow interests but to articulate a shared competitiveness mandate.
4. What Such a Coalition Should Advocate
A cross-sector enterprise coalition would have the legitimacy and clarity to advocate a small, focused package of priorities:
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A European industrial strategy organised around ecosystems, not individual firms or abstract sectors.
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Reform of competition policy to allow scale in globally oligopolistic industries, while preserving openness where fragmentation persists.
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A coherent trade defence stance, particularly against sectors where Chinese overcapacity poses existential risk.
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EU-level demand pooling, especially in clean tech, defence, semiconductors, digital infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing.
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Stronger EU financing instruments, enabling Europe to match the scale of US and Chinese industrial commitments.
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A deepened capital market, reducing Europe’s reliance on US exits and scaling pathways.
These demands are reasonable, actionable, and aligned with the logic of your analysis.
But they will not be championed effectively unless Europe’s enterprise community does it collectively.
5. A Role for the Centre for European Reform and Economic Voices Like Yours
CER is in a unique position to catalyse this missing alignment.
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Intellectually, you already provide the systemic framework for understanding Europe’s economic risks.
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Institutionally, CER can convene cross-sector dialogues between enterprises, policymakers, and researchers.
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Strategically, you can help define the analytical backbone of an enterprise-led European competitiveness agenda.
This is not about becoming a lobbyist.
It is about facilitating a process through which Europe’s most exposed and most capable actors articulate a shared vision—and about grounding that vision in rigorous economic reasoning.
Economists like you can give such a coalition coherence, legitimacy, and direction.
Closing Reflection
Europe no longer suffers from a lack of analysis.
It suffers from a lack of actors able to convert analysis into operational pressure and political coherence.
Your work points toward what Europe must do.
A mobilised enterprise coalition may be the only actor capable of making sure that Europe actually does it.
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