Former Italian Prime Minister: The fate of the European Union is either integration or decline

Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said that the European Union must follow the path of greater integration or it will not be able to compete with the United States and China.

This came in an interview with Enrico Letta with the Financial Times, where the newspaper presented statistics on development dynamics, according to which the European Union's share of the world's gross domestic product has declined significantly over the past decades, in contrast to the United States and China.

Letta added that EU member states must unify their financial, energy and telecommunications markets or risk losing “economic security.”

“Integration in these sectors should help free up more private investment for policy priorities such as transitioning to a green economy, granting membership to Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, and increasing defense spending,” he said.

Letta stressed that the problem is that Europe in the new world is “very small,” and continued: “If we do not integrate, we will fall into a state of decline, and stagnation in the single market means decline.”

He pointed out that if Donald Trump is re-elected as President of the United States, the European Union will have to use the opportunities available in its internal market more boldly.