Europe in 2025
People, education and culture drive productivity
By 2025, Europe should boost its prosperity by making better use of its most precious resource – its people. European labour markets need to become much more inclusive, enabling business to mobilise employees of all ages and at all levels of qualification, and to remunerate work in line with performance. Continuous education and training will help with successful matching of skills and business needs. Public policies based on a new understanding of job security – putting less focus on preserving jobs and more on ensuring high levels of productive and sustainable employment – would help Europeans to embrace change. With this kind of flexibility, a well-educated and well-led workforce could help raise European productivity to amongst the highest in the world.
“Europe’s most precious resource is its people.”
All Europeans should be enabled to use their talents and apply them fully in a professional setting, contributing to the collective benefit of society. To make this possible, a culture change is required: motivation, commitment, dedication and a willingness to work harder, are important qualities that allow businesses to continuously improve innovation capacity and productivity. Europe needs to achieve a virtuous cycle, where the ability to contribute to society motivates employees and reinforces their commitment, strengthening public confidence in a culture of competitiveness. Companies will play an important role by offering their employees an attractive working environment that inspires confidence and entrepreneurship. This can be facilitated by smarter working methods using new technologies and flexible working patterns.
“Partnership between education, business and government.”
Provided Europe can successfully harness the talents of its people, an increased number of European companies – globally competitive European champions – could feature in the Fortune Global 500 in 2025. Much of the intellectual property embedded in future European products can be the fruit of partnership between education, business and government. A continually-strengthened international reputation of European universities would encourage business to invest in ambitious research and innovation programmes and help attract venture capital. European self-funded coordinating agencies could spur the development of high-potential technologies, manufactured and first applied in Europe – for example by creating clusters of excellence in new lead markets.
To achieve this, Europe’s credentials in education must be consistently upgraded. A significant proportion of the world’s top universities should be European. European universities should also be encouraged to develop campuses and partnerships in other parts of the world, teaching and recruiting top international talent and contributing to a strong global interest in and understanding of Europe. Europe-wide immigration rules should be re-designed on the principles of openness, clarity and predictability, creating a meaningful incentive for non-native high performers to contribute to Europe’s culture of excellence. They could become a vital driver of Europe’s sustained economic success.
“Europe’s credentials in education must be consistently upgraded.”
In 2025, European companies will continue to value world leading brands as a key feature of global competitiveness. Design and fashion should continue to be associated with the European lifestyle, inspired by the continent’s diversity and openness to the world. Global popularity could be reinforced by a renewed interest in Europe’s culture and way of life, helped by the ease of access to European digital content on the internet from anywhere in the world. As a result, innovative companies from around the world could become interested in pursuing partnerships with Europe’s diverse, artistic communities, to give birth to a globally successful array of original and iconic products, services and technology, for consumers and business alike.
“Completion of the EU’s Single Market is key.”
Completion of the EU’s Single Market, within a tariff-free global economy, will be a key element in achieving this. Remaining obstacles to cross-border mobility of people and knowledge must be eliminated, allowing companies to offer high-quality products and services across Europe at prices that can compete with the rest of the world. Europe should see a significant shift away from state intervention towards a high level of trust in the ability of markets, supported by a smarter regulatory framework, to provide the products and services to improve societal well-being.
Business performance in manufacturing and services would be further facilitated by an excellent infrastructure, including Europe-wide energy networks ensuring the security of energy supplies, fast and secure broadband networks and high-tech transport links. All these networks should be unrestricted by national borders and could be funded and operated by the private sector, operating in a friendly and efficient regulatory environment supported by a competitive tax base.