"EUR 750-800 billion in additional investment will be required each year… The effort would be more than double that of Marshall Plan."
Mario Draghi said that in Strasbourg on 17 September 2024, when he presented his report on the future of European competitiveness. Two years on, the EU is fighting over a budget that cannot come close to that number.
On Saturday the Irish presidency of the Council put forward a compromise for the 2028-34 EU budget: about €1.6 trillion over seven years. Divide it out and the whole budget, farm payments and regional funds included, comes to roughly €230 billion a year. That is our calculation, not the presidency's. Draghi's figure is more than three times larger, and it describes extra investment on top of what Europe already spends.
This is not a complaint that the budget is too small. The Draghi agenda leans on private investors and national governments for most of the money, which is why the report put so much weight on capital markets and a deeper Single Market. The common budget's job is to help point that spending in the same direction.
The presidency's text cuts competitiveness and security spending by 13% against the Commission's proposal, more than four times the 3% cut to regional development, agriculture and fisheries. Governments have not agreed on that split, and Sweden, the Netherlands and Parliament have all rejected the text from opposite directions. Even so, the first draft on the table trims the headings Draghi cared about most and spares the older ones.
EPIC's Draghi Implementation Index, run through its Draghi Observatory at draghiwatch.eu, tracks how many of the report's 383 recommendations have become binding EU law. In its July 2026 preliminary update, 60 of 383, or 15.7%, were fully implemented. Counting partial implementation, the figure was 158 of 383, or 41.3%.
The pace has slowed. The February-June half-year added 2.4 percentage points to the combined score, against 7.5 points in the September-January half-year. In the January 2026 interim audit, the strict figure was 15.1% and the combined figure 38.9%.
EPIC's reading is that the EU moves fastest where competitiveness fuses with security. Defence rose from 35.7% to 78.6% between the September 2025 baseline and the January 2026 audit. The structural reforms that force market outcomes, such as a true Single Market and capital markets integration, are among the weakest on delivery.
Draghi's number was a call for Europe to change how it invests, not a bill for Brussels. The Index says the changes are mostly still unmade, and the budget draft shows the money that Brussels does control is under pressure. If leaders trim the competitiveness and security lines before the structural reforms land, Europe will have less to steer private capital with and little to steer it toward. The July update is the latest dated reading. It shows delivery slowing, and the budget draft does not suggest the money will speed it up.
