Home › Archive › In the Media › ČRo Plus | Europe suffers from Peter Pan syndrome. To be competitive, it must not be afraid to grow, says analyst DaněkČRo Plus | Europe suffers from Peter Pan syndrome. To be competitive, it must not be afraid to grow, says analyst Daněk
The European Commission has presented a competitiveness compass to tackle expensive energy, dependence on fossil fuel imports and the growing influence of China. Its guiding principle is less bureaucracy, more innovation. "The objectives are going in the right direction, the problem is that paper can take a lot. And Europe is good at painting grand strategies," recalls Viktor Daněk, deputy director of EUROPEUM institute and former correspondent for Czech Radio in Brussels.
31. January 2025
I remember the Lisbon Strategy, which claimed that Europe would become the most competitive continent in the world by 2010. And the deed was done. But I do not want to be totally pessimistic, because I think that the period in which the European Commission is coming up with its plans is extremely favourable for a truly radical change.
It is painful to look at the hard data on how fast the train is speeding away from us and how wide the competitiveness gap between the United States and Europe is getting. The key is to analyse well where the problems lie and not to take populist shortcuts, as is happening in the Czech debate.
Europe is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. Small businesses are afraid to grow up like a boy in Neverland, lest they lose their fairy-tale world. European companies see that when they grow up, new bureaucratic obligations will fall on them, so they prefer to stagnate in order to maintain their small business advantage deliberately.
Watch the whole interview here.
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