Is Europe’s ‘Competitiveness Man’ causing division in Europe?

Mario Draghi’s new think tank, born out of frustration with Brussels, excludes Central Europe while giving a prominent place to business interests linked to the United States.

On 24 August, Mario Draghi, who was both the former president of the European Central Bank and a former prime minister of Italy, founded the Rhine Group in conjunction with Patrick Collison, the Irish technology entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Stripe. This initiative, which is based in Geneva, gathers together prominent individuals from the fields of business, finance, technology, academia, and politics with the aim of turning Draghi’s 2024 competitiveness report into an action plan. Draghi and Collison share the role of co-chairs, while Luis Garicano, a Spanish economist and former member of the European Parliament, is the executive director.

The group came to life as a result of increasing frustration at the fact that Europe’s political system has been unable to deal with the continent’s economic stagnation and is intended to function as an independent means of getting action underway on the wide-ranging economic........

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