Europe needs to move from reports and debates around competitiveness to taking real action, according to Chambers Ireland.
A two-day, informal meeting of Europe’s competitiveness council kicks off in Dublin today, as part of Ireland’s EU presidency.
It will focus on reinforcing the single market, industrial decarbonisation and making more finance available for growing companies.
Ian Talbot, chief executive of Chambers Ireland, said it was important that it results in real progress in the area.
“We’ve plenty of information… we need to stop talking and we need to start doing,” he said.
“We really need to start to see progress here because at the moment Europe is really struggling to stay competitive and to stay growing at the same rate as some of our huge competitors such as the US and China,” he said.
Competitiveness has been high on the EU agenda for some time, with the Draghi and Lette Reports published in 2024.
Mr Talbot said that progress had been slow since then, though he felt there were more positive signals coming from European authorities now.
“The rhetoric of the current EU Commission is much better than the rhetoric of the last one,” he said. “This Commission is at least seeking to turn around some of the excessive regulation, but we still need more action.”
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He said making Europe more competitive offered a significant opportunity to Irish firms – as it could help to further reduce the barrier to trading across the union.
If it achieved its objectives it would also be of benefit to European citizens.
“Irish companies have the opportunity to deal with 26 other European countries and we’re not doing enough of that. That’s a great opportunity,” he said. “And powering decarbonisation, as they call it, that’s basically how can we reduce emissions in Europe without driving industry out of Europe.
“And that’s about more affordable energy.”
Competitiveness is one of the three priorities that the Government has said it will focus on as part of its EU presidency.
Mr Talbot said success on that front would be judged on the amount of progress that’s made in a number of key areas.
“By the end of Ireland’s presidency, we really need to see what’s called the savings and investment union now… progressed dramatically,” he said. “We need to see the various omnibus regulatory pullback to be actually delivered on.
“And, ultimately, we need more support for businesses to go out there and take risks and create new jobs,” he added.
