Ter Weel outlines four priorities to boost European competitiveness
Europe must deepen its single market, unify capital markets, secure critical infrastructure and lower public debt to address annual investment needs of €800 billion, according to De Nederlandsche Bank's Bas ter Weel at the European Competitiveness Forum in Maastricht.
Four pillars for an eight hundred billion challenge
Speaking in Maastricht, Bas ter Weel highlighted that the European Union requires €800 billion in annual investments for green transition, digitalisation and defence.
Although the euro area expanded by 1.2 percent annually between 2020 and 2025, structural barriers remain high.
Ter Weel identified four priorities: deepening the single market, integrating capital markets, securing critical infrastructure and rebuilding fiscal buffers.
Single market barriers currently create trade frictions equivalent to tariffs between 8 percent and 44 percent.
Meanwhile, €10 trillion in European savings sits in cash deposits, and nearly 30 percent of EU unicorns have relocated abroad since 2008 due to scarce scale-up capital.
From payment autonomy to fiscal buffers
Ter Weel pointed to central bank initiatives like the digital euro, TIPS cross-border payment links and the Pontes DLT bridge to reduce reliance on foreign providers.
On public finances, he warned that only one in three euro area countries has reduced public debt to pre-pandemic levels.
“Europe is no longer a profit centre, it is our lifeline,” Ter Weel said, urging governments to rebuild fiscal buffers to prevent fiscal dominance and protect the monetary policy transmission mechanism.
Right diagnosis, familiar political deadlock
The diagnosis accurately targets Europe's chronic capital fragmentation.
Yet preaching single market reform ignores the political resistance that stalled the Capital Markets Union for a decade.
Without yielding national sovereignty over legal and fiscal frameworks, these ambitions will remain rhetoric.