No improvement in the EU’s investment environment in 2023

20 March 2024 - BusinessEurope has just published our 2024 Reform Barometer, which looks at Europe’s global competitiveness performance and evaluates policy decisions.

BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson said: "Our key finding is that 88% of our national member federations believe that, having declined significantly between 2020 and 2023, there was no improvement in the attractiveness of the EU's investment environment vis-à-vis our major competitors over the last 12 months. Moreover, over half of our member federations (54%) believe that the regulatory burden for companies operating in the EU increased in 2023.

Our report also highlights that economic growth in the US exceeded that in the EU for the seventh time in the last ten years in 2023. The EU has failed to close its long-term productivity gap with the US, with EU overall productivity in 2022 only 75% of that enjoyed in the US. Similarly, the gap in productive investment continues to widen; productive investment in 2022 amounted to 15% of GDP in the US versus 11% in the EU.

During the next political cycle, the EU needs to put competitiveness at the forefront. The EU needs to rejuvenate and further develop the single market in areas ranging from digital to financial services, make good on the Commission's promise to reduce reporting requirements for companies by 25%, and ensure that the Green Deal becomes a growth strategy by flanking it with a real Industrial Deal."

The Reform Barometer also shows that initial expectations for an improvement in the EU’s Next Generation Recovery and Resilience facility (RRF) implementation has faded. The proportion of BusinessEurope member federations dissatisfied with implementation of their national plans has increased from 29% following the launch of the plans to 42% now.