ContextEvening speech by the Bundesbank President in the Basilica of the Bode-Museum on Berlin's Museum Island.
Why it mattersGiven while the ECB Governing Council met in Berlin, this speech sums up the Bundesbank's agenda for European competitiveness, from capital markets to energy grids.
- European firms compete from 27 separate markets against the US and China.
- Promising start-ups must look abroad for funding.
- Europe lags in AI and depends on others for key technologies.
- Build the Savings and Investments Union to channel savings into investment.
- Invest in data centres, energy grids and cheap, secure electricity.
- Act at European level wherever scale is decisive.
Read the speech summary
1. Europe is not a museum
Speaking in the Bode Museum in Berlin, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel rejected the idea that Europe merely preserves past prosperity while innovation happens elsewhere. The world is harsher and less predictable, competition is fiercer and artificial intelligence is reshaping economies, so competitiveness and sovereignty must be considered together. He notes that Europe depends on non-European providers for chips, computing power and cloud services, and that the most capable models come from the United States and China.
2. Europe's assets and what it needs
His view is that Europe can still become a major technological player: it has top universities and AI talent, industrial data and large private savings. But firms cannot race the Americans and Chinese while split across 27 national markets for money, services and workers; Europe must become large in practice. Three things are essential: more venture capital through the Savings and Investments Union, so start-ups need not seek funding abroad; enough computing capacity, meaning data centres, grids and competitively priced power, helped by more cross-border interconnections; and truly integrated markets for digital services and talent so young firms can scale quickly.
3. Act at European level
Where scale is decisive, he says, national action falls short and national interests are often better defended by acting jointly, so initiatives should be judged through a European lens. Central bankers can use the Eurosystem's experience to explain what is at stake, and the digital euro is the Eurosystem's contribution to sovereignty. He ends by calling prosperity a launch pad rather than a relic, comparing Europe with a museum that keeps renewing itself.