{"id":77955,"date":"2024-12-05T08:26:59","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T06:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-reptes-i-deures-de-la-nova-comissio-europea\/"},"modified":"2024-12-05T10:01:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T08:01:11","slug":"idees-dactualitat-reptes-i-deures-de-la-nova-comissio-europea","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-reptes-i-deures-de-la-nova-comissio-europea\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – Challenges and duties of the new European Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The new European Commission has started work this Monday with a series of challenges ahead, some of which were left over from the last legislature while others have become more urgent in recent months with the worsening situation in the Middle East, the victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the recession of the German economy, the main one in the euro zone. The European Union is therefore entering a particularly delicate legislature during which it will have to try to lay the foundations for resolving five fundamental issues if it wants to be a key player at the economic and geopolitical level in order to be able to compete and negotiate on an equal footing with China and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that her first major initiative will be to establish a competitiveness compass, based on the three pillars of the Draghi report<\/a>: closing the innovation gap with the US and China, presenting a joint decarbonisation and competitiveness plan, and improving the security system to reduce external dependencies. Gaining competitiveness is therefore one of the main objectives, as the lack of competitiveness vis-\u00e0-vis the US and China poses an existential risk to the future of the EU. Both the Draghi report and the Letta report<\/a> make a precise diagnosis of the causes of the European productivity deficit and propose measures to strengthen the European economy focused on improving integration in the single market, reducing bureaucracy and excessive regulation, promoting innovation and increasing common financing. The EU needs more investment, and a radical overhaul of its industrial policy to reverse the competitive decline vis-\u00e0-vis the US and China. Europe exports more than the U.S., but has lower productivity, largely due to the technological leap that the U.S. has already made, and that the EU has yet to make. Likewise, in per capita terms, real household disposable income has grown twice as much in the US as in the EU since 2000, the year in which the innovation gap began to widen. Currently, only four of the world’s top 50 technology companies are European while about 30% of the so-called unicorns – young technology companies that grow in value to over $1 billion – end up setting up shop in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both reports, however, overlook a crucial element: demographics. Indeed, the continent is facing an aging population: Europe has an average age of 44, higher than that of the United States (38) and much higher than that of Africa (18) or India (28). This situation is worsened by a low fertility rate (1.4 children per woman, far from the 2.1 needed for generational replacement) and the projection that by 2050 more than 30% of the population will be over 65. Aging hinders economic growth, increases pressure on pension and welfare systems, and reduces the availability of labour in key sectors. To maintain the European social model and advance in technology and decarbonisation, the EU would need to grow at 2.5% per year, instead of the current 1.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic and later with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, strategic autonomy became a key issue and will remain so this term. The Commission has already taken steps to reduce its energy dependence on Russia and to gain access to raw materials that are mostly imported from China. Europe is aware that it has paid the price for putting its future in the hands of a single supplier and cannot make the same mistake again. Thus, up to three commissioners have responsibilities to ensure that the EU can be self-sufficient in cases of crises whether they are economic, health-related or related to the ecological and digital transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a European Parliament with less representation from the Greens and where climate sceptics from the most conservative and radical right groups will try to stop the Green Deal<\/a>, the Commission will be forced to change the discourse of the ecological transition. Beyond the necessary investments, the EU’s objective must be to turn decarbonisation into a real economic driver with a more social approach (not for nothing does Commissioner Teresa Ribera’s portfolio incorporate the term \u201cfair\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war at the gates of the European Union, which will soon be three years old, has forced the 27 to promote a defence industry that has been overlooked for many years. This will therefore affect the institutional architecture in the field of security, as well as the distribution of power and the role played by its main actors. The war in Ukraine has intensified debates on the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy<\/a> (CSDP) and revealed its dependence on NATO as an essential pillar for collective defence. Despite advances such as the 2022 approval of the Strategic Compass<\/a>, internal divisions and member states’ reluctance to cede sovereignty, hinder progress toward a common European army, while tensions between Atlanticist and integrationist approaches exacerbate the EU’s strategic fragmentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in economic and particularly energy matters, the European Commission faces the challenge of remaining a strong geopolitical actor at a time of instability and change. With the return of Donald Trump in the White House, Brussels is losing a partner it can trust on the other side of the Atlantic. In this new context, it will be essential for the EU to set its own foreign policy. This will not be easy, as von der Leyen will have to strike a balance with the European Council, not only in the negotiations with Ukraine, but also in the pressure that the EU can exert on Israel to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza and initiate a peace process in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, while working to resolve the urgent problems of productivity and defence planning, the new Commission will have to tackle the major unfinished business of the forthcoming eastward enlargement. Indeed, the conditions for the accession of the Balkan countries, Moldova and Ukraine imply the implementation of major reforms that will change the political and socio-economic configuration of Europe forever. However, despite the tensions that can already be felt, for example between Poland and Ukraine over future European aid or the impact of enlargement on the Common Agricultural Policy<\/a> (CAP), enlargement is currently the major absentee from the European public debate, which is largely focused on another major challenge: migration policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, the EU has signed controversial agreements with countries such as Tunisia, Egypt or Mauritania to send funds and subsidize their programs in exchange for controlling their borders. Brussels now wants to expand this model and will reform the regulation on deportations to make it stricter. In addition, von der Leyen has opened the door to analyse a European formula to create deportation centres outside the EU, following the path that the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, wants to implement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Commission will have to face all these challenges in a context marked by a growing polarization, in which the far-right parties are increasing their electoral support and introducing their priorities in the political agendas. At the same time, the populist and nationalist discourse is permeating a significant part of the European population, largely thanks to the disinformation fostered by the networks and fed not only by internal but also external agents, such as Russia or China, with the aim of destabilizing the EU. We will have to be very attentive to the ongoing political crisis in France and to the elections that will take place in 2025 in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: Group photography of the new European Commission. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. \u00a9 European Union, 2024<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noa Redondo, Ariadna Coca and David Jim\u00e9nez, trainees at the CETC, have participated to this issue of Idees d\u2019actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new European Commission has started work this Monday with a series of challenges ahead, some of which were left over from the last legislature while others have become more urgent in recent months with the worsening situation in the Middle East, the victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the recession of the German economy, the main one in the euro zone. The European Union is therefore entering a particularly delicate legislature during which it will have to try to lay the foundations for resolving five fundamental issues if it wants to be a key player at\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":77965,"template":"","category_newspaper":[584],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-77955","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-584"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - Challenges and duties of the new European Commission – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-reptes-i-deures-de-la-nova-comissio-europea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - Challenges and duties of the new European Commission – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new European Commission has started work this Monday with a series of challenges ahead, some of which were left over from the last legislature while others have become more urgent in recent months with the worsening situation in the Middle East, the victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the recession of the German economy, the main one in the euro zone. 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