Escrivá urges European scale to counter strategic dependencies
Bank of Spain Governor José Luis Escrivá urged Europe to deepen integration and replicate its strongest national policies. At the ICMB public lecture in Geneva, he called for stronger capital markets, talent mobility and European financial infrastructure.
Four pressures expose Europe's dependencies
Escrivá identified ageing, geoeconomic rivalry, climate change and AI as challenges to Europe's model.
Europe would lose one in five workers by 2050 without immigration.
EU net energy imports meet 57 percent of its needs, versus China's 24 percent in 2024.
Oil and gas represent 67 and 24 percent of energy imports.
China supplies 99 percent of imported solar panels, 60 percent of wind turbines, 80 percent of lithium-ion batteries and 98 percent of rare-earth magnets.
Electrification reached 34 percent in China against 24 percent in the EU in 2024.
US AI investment was seventeen times the EU level over the past decade.
Escrivá said Europe lacks preparation for economic power politics as strategic competition replaces the rules-based order.
National successes offer European templates
The proposed EU Inc. regime offers online incorporation in 48 hours for at most €100, with no minimum capital and one-time data submission.
Escrivá sought faster start-up insolvency, harmonised collateral enforcement and tax and labor coverage.
Denmark, Sweden and Finland had 55.8 listed firms per million residents at end-2025, versus 9.5 elsewhere in the EU.
Blue Cards averaged 83,000 annually in 2022–2024, triple pre-pandemic issuance; Germany issued 75 percent.
Holders can move within the EU after 12 months.
France and Spain still rely heavily on national permits.
Scale without abandoning the model
Escrivá advocated better national policies and deeper integration, not copying other powers.
Pontes connects tokenised platforms to TARGET settlement in central bank money; Appia is the next architectural step.
He called for leadership to overcome narrow national interests and explain medium-term trade-offs.