Draghi’s think tank expresses disappointment at the EU’s inaction two years on from the Competitiveness Report

“Of the fifty most important tech companies in the world, only four are European.” This sobering observation opens the founding and presentation document of the Rhine Group, a think tank founded in August 2026 by Mario Draghi and Stripe’s CEO, Patrick Collison. The initiative came to light thanks to a post on X – increasingly the epicentre of institutional and technological debate – by the economist Luis Garicano, who serves as the think tank’s executive director. Naturally, associations and think tanks abound across the institutional landscape, but it is a safe bet that the Rhine Group will be the subject of much discussion. First and foremost because of Draghi’s direct and high-level involvement: he is not merely a voice in the chorus, but the driving force behind a group that, despite differences in emphasis and nuance, has come together precisely around the 2024 Draghi Report on Competitiveness and the subsequent Competitiveness Compass, adopted in 2025 – at least on paper – by the European Commission and which has remained largely unimplemented.

Over the past two years, the former Italian Prime Minister has sought to stimulate debate and call for the implementation of the measures contained in his reports, with unsatisfactory results. The European business community, particularly the technological innovation sector, has rallied to his side. In January 2025, Ericsson and Nokia, two leading connectivity firms – although formally competitors – joined forces to publish an open letter addressed to the European Commission calling for the urgent adoption of the measures outlined by Draghi at the time. They, too, were far from satisfied with the response, in practice, from the EU institutions. Moreover, as the think tank’s presentation consistently emphasises, ‘the stakes are existential’. The European political and institutional project stands at a crossroads, at the heart of a historic turning point where mere rhetoric will not suffice. In light of the radical paradigm shifts observed at international level – the acceleration of technology, the return of the language of force to the historical stage, the markedly altered transatlantic relations, and the overwhelming rise of China – the only way to compete in such scenarios is through innovation: real, authentic innovation. “If stagnation continues,” it is noted, “the continent will progressively lose its ability to meet the basic requirements upon which a modern state is built: defence, public health, pensions, education, climate investment and support schemes for those who lose their jobs.”

Precisely for this reason, another feature of the group that is certainly worth mentioning is its composition. In other words, this is not the usual gathering of theorists and academics keen to work on their tans during a conference. There are academics, of course – for example, Francesco Giavazzi and Francesco Decarolis – but above all there are entrepreneurs, starting with Collison, the CEO of Stripe. The list of members includes Andrea Pignataro, CEO of Ion Group and the 46th richest man in the world; Luca Ferrari, CEO of Bending Spoons; Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard; Annette Mosman, CEO of APG Group; Bastian Nominacher, CEO of Celonis; Jörg Kukies, former German Minister of Finance and now managing director at Morgan Stanley; Louis Dreyfus, CEO of the Le Monde publishing group; and others. This is, therefore, a group with concrete experience in innovation and finance, and ambitions to revitalise a productive and technological ecosystem that is in a state of dramatic stagnation. Although it is not a political party, it is impossible not to discern, in the statements marking the think tank’s launch and in the members’ biographies, a clear agenda that will ultimately have political implications, both at European level and within individual states. It is no stretch to argue that the Rhine Group was born out of mistrust of the prolonged inaction of European institutions and the substantial failure to implement the Draghi Report.

Another aspect worth noting is the interest that Garicano’s post on X has sparked within a particular ecosystem: that of European ‘effective accelerationists’ – a group of entrepreneurs and technologists inspired by the philosophy of accelerationism, which has long been cherished in Silicon Valley and who have for some time been calling in Europe for a drastic reduction in bureaucracy, technological innovation, the engineering of decision-making processes, and the emergence of a European venture capital sector – whilst also seeking to influence, culturally, the risk aversion that characterises Europeans. In all likelihood, this is not exactly the philosophy that drives the group, but Garicano explained that the name was also chosen because of the fluid flow of the river – the Rhine, in this case. Accelerationists or not, the members of the Rhine Group are calling for acceleration to break the deadlock.