Mario Draghi’s Report Through the Lens of Critical Geopolitics

Mario Draghi's September 2024 report on European competitiveness is the basis for the political economy direction that the European Union will follow in the next five years. The article analyses the report through a critical geopolitics lens, employing discourse analysis of practical geopolitics to decipher its embedded meanings within broader EU political debates. The analysis reveals three key discursive categories: foundational narratives, missed in the report narratives and new meanings. Fundamental narratives include existential threat to the EU, economic dependence, and market regulation as a geoeconomic necessity. Absent, but actively discussed by EU politicians, are narratives of EU naivety, open strategic autonomy, and EU actorness in the world system. The absence of these categories demonstrates a shift to the active phase of building unified patterns of foreign economic relations. New meanings encompass a combination of twin green and digital transition with competitiveness and strengthening of the defence industry, collective effectiveness, and the EU's foreign economic policy. Despite the fact that the EU foreign economic relations follow the logics of selection of trading partners and security concerns, the report demonstrates a demand for greater communitarianisation and prioritisation of EU-level objectives over national interests. These findings reveal the strengthening of geopolitics, which continues to play a major role in reshaping of Europe political economy.