This article analyses patterns in total factor productivity (TFP) in the EU in comparison with the US using the EU-KLEMS dataset. TFP growth in both regions has been largely driven by a few key sectors. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis (2013-2019), services played a major role in...

ue to Trump Administration policies, Europe faces a new economic geography. In essence, European economies have lost insurance of various types previously provided by the U.S. The European Union has more agency to shape its new environment and more opportunities for gains than is commonly...

Debates on the EU's economy focus on the competitiveness gap, a narrative that encourages export-first policies. This is the wrong focus, as prosperity depends mainly on domestic productivity. Therefore, the EU's key challenges are weak productivity and, more recently, economic security. Trade...

The ruptured geopolitical world has accentuated the urgency for Europe to strengthen its economy through productivity-enhancing investment, including in new technologies and defence. The roadmap is laid out in the Draghi and Letta reports, but additional new aspects have been added because of US...

The return of trade policy as an instrument of geopolitics has raised concerns about the future of the global trading system. But Trump's tariffs of 2025 have not led to a collapse of global trade. The key reason for this resilience is that Trump's tariffs are discriminatory, i.e. the US has a...

Europe's investment needs linked to the green and digital transitions - and increasingly to security and defence - will have to be met primarily through private capital. This paper argues that difficulties stem less from a lack of EU-level initiatives than from structural constraints rooted in...

In August 2025, the European Union and the United States announced that they had agreed on a "Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade". The Framework Agreement remains vulnerable due to unresolved conflicts over the EU's treatment of US service providers, however. This...

An enlarged EU budget is needed with own resources to finance European public goods and create a savings and investment union. This article argues that Europe's weak productivity, strategic vulnerabilities and fragmented capital markets call for a coherent EU-level investment strategy. European...