Commission President von der Leyen speaks at conference on competitiveness one year after Draghi report

A high-level conference on 'One year after: The Draghi Report - what has been achieved and what has changed' took place in Brussels on 16 September 2025, looking at progress made by the European Commission in implementing the recommendations of the report on the future of European Competitiveness that had been published one year ago.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen opened the conference and in her speech addressed, amongst other issues, the European Competitiveness Fund: "It will be the centrepiece of the next European budget – with a proposed firepower of over 400 billion EUR. That includes a rise of twice more money for research five times more money than today for digital. Six times more for clean tech. This is the investment that Europe needs and now Parliament and Council have to be convinced".

Ms von der Leyen also addressed the Single Market Roadmap to 2028 and the fifth freedom, saying that "The aim is, to increase the pace – speed-up the processes. It will connect our work on capital, services, energy, telecoms, the fifth freedom for knowledge and innovation, as well as the 28th regime for innovative companies with concrete timelines. Because only what gets measured gets done"

Mario Draghi said amongst others that he welcomes the doubling of the funding for Horizon Europe, but that this is not enough, and that the EU needs to increase its speed.

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Opening keynote speech by President von der Leyen at the ‘One Year After the Draghi Report' Conference (check against delivery)