13m ago
10.30 GMT
Von del
Leyen: must work together to avoid global race to the bottom
Heather
Stewart
European
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has used her speech at Davos to urge
EU countries to work more closely together, in the face of the fragmenting
global economy.
“The
cooperative world order we imagined 25 years ago has not turned into reality.
Instead we have entered a new era of harsh geostrategic competition,” she told
the World Economic Forum.
“We will
need to work together to avoid a global race to the bottom.”
Responding
to ex-ECB president Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness last year, she
said the Commission will soon propose new policies in three key areas -
deepening capital markets integration; allowing big companies to work across
the EU under a single set of rules; and creating an “energy union”.
“It is
time to complete our energy union so that clean power can run freely across our
continent .”
In what
appeared to be a sideswipe at Donald Trump’s approach, Von Der Leyen said,
“with Europe, what you see is what you get. We play by the rules. Our deals
have no strings attached.” She said her new Commission would make its first
foreign trip to India.
Von der
Leyen also stressed the close trade and economic connections between the EU and
the US, however, saying the EU would engage early with the new administration.
She said:
“We will
be pragmatic, but we will always stand by our principles. We will protect our
interests and uphold our values, because that is the European way.”
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