Safeguarding Europe’s Competitiveness and Strategic Autonomy

Abstract

Europe has shown great resolve in its initial response at scale and speed to the war on Ukraine. We will need to build the same momentum to face the region´s slow-motion corporate and technology crisis. Europe has many high-performing companies, but, in aggregate, its firms are growing more slowly, creating lower returns, and investing less in R&D than their US counterparts, largely because they lag behind on tech. New McKinsey Global Institute research finds that of ten transversal technologies that spread across most industries, Europe leads on only two. As tech spreads across sectors, increasingly determining competitive dynamics, European players appear increasingly vulnerable, even in traditional strongholds such as automotive. An estimated €2 trillion to €4 trillion of annual value could be at stake – six times the amount needed for the net zero transition – and, with it, Europe's long-term prosperity and strategic autonomy. A program of 11 actions can turn the tide.