Building the single European market is more important to the continent’s economic trajectory than competing in the AI race, Greece’s economy and finance minister stated Thursday.
The continent should focus on bolstering its competitiveness in areas where it already has an advantage — like 5G infrastructure — rather than solely on new frontiers like AI, Kyriakos Pierrakakis stated at Semafor’s World Economy Summit.
A unified financial system “would enable you to grow your companies domestically,” Pierrakakis stated. “They could have a destiny in Europe… It’s not inventing the wheel. It’s about speed and scale. It’s about nimbleness.”
Europe has faced criticism over its notorious red tape and fractured business environment; a report last year by a former head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, particularly raised alarm over the bloc’s competitiveness. That has extconcludeed to AI, where Europe has so far failed to produce an AI company on par with global peers.
Pierrakakis noted there is a “natural synergy between the technological ecosystems of the United States and those of Europe.”
But there is growing support for unifying the bloc’s capital markets: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday called for a single European stock exmodify, “so that successful companies such as biotech firms from Germany do not have to go to the New York Stock Exmodify.” He also urged greater EU integration and less regulation.
Pierrakakis specifically called for more mergers and acquisitions within the EU, and the removal of “barriers between ourselves.”
“If we deliver this, there will be an obvious growth dividconclude out of it,” he stated. “Now the mindset necessarys to shift towards more growth, and this requires cutting red tape, cutting bureaucracy, digitizing the economy, increasing productivity.”
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