The European Union should be able to contract common debt for major EU projects like joint defence, former Italian premier and ex European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said in a keynote speech to the annual Rimini Meeting of the influential Catholic activist group Comunione e Liberazione (CL) on its opening day Friday.
"Only forms of common debt can support large-scale European projects that insufficient, fragmented national efforts would never be able to implement.
This applies to defence, especially research and development; to energy, for the necessary investments in European networks and infrastructure; and to disruptive technologies, an area where the risks are very high but the potential successes are crucial in transforming our economies." Draghi recalled his speech a few years ago, also in Rimini, on "good debt and bad debt," and emphasized that today "in some sectors, good debt is no longer possible at the national level because investments made in isolation cannot reach the scale necessary to increase productivity and justify the debt."
