Analysis · Analysis
Reading the Draghi Report Against the Welfare State
Competitiveness, productivity, and the missing social dimension of the EU's industrial agenda.
Maria Saridou · April 2026 · 7 min read
The Draghi report frames European competitiveness primarily through productivity and investment gaps. But its social dimension remains thin — and that matters for how welfare states are positioned in the EU's industrial agenda.
Competitiveness without social investment
When social policy appears in competitiveness discourse, it is often as a cost to be managed rather than an investment in human capital and labour market resilience.