Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has issued a stark warning: Europe must rapidly integrate its single market and forge a cohesive industrial strategy, or risk being relegated to a subordinate role relative to the United States and China. Speaking on Euronews' Europe Today, Letta argued that the continent's window of opportunity is narrowing.
“We don’t want to be a colony of the US, and we don’t want to be a colony of China, we want to be Europeans,” Letta said, framing the choice as existential for the Union’s twenty-seven member states and the wider continent, including the UK, Switzerland, Norway, and the Balkans.
From report to roadmap
In 2024, Letta published a comprehensive report titled Much More Than a Market, which laid out a blueprint for completing the single market. The document highlighted the need for an energy union, integrated digital services, and the end of fragmented capital markets. It also proposed a “fifth freedom” of research and innovation, placing the knowledge economy at the centre of EU economic policy.
That report has now directly inspired the European Commission’s new strategy, “One Europe, One Market,” which outlines 42 EU-level reforms with specific deadlines. Most are expected to be concluded within two years. Among the flagship proposals are the Industrial Accelerator Act, designed to create a robust industrial strategy, and the so-called 28th Regime, or “EU Inc,” a legislative framework to simplify business creation across borders.
Letta noted that the urgency has been amplified by recent geopolitical shocks. “There was an acceleration in the last three months,” he said. “The year 2025 was a year in which we were all shocked by the new Trump II era, the tariffs, wars, and the rest. Then Greenland happened. I think Greenland was a big wake-up call for all European countries and leaders.”
The reference to Greenland underscores how US President Donald Trump’s threats to seize the Danish territory have jolted European capitals into action. The episode, Letta argued, crystallised the need for Europe to assert its own strategic autonomy.
The EU aims to approve both the Industrial Accelerator Act and the 28th Regime by the end of the year. The strategy also includes measures to strengthen the bloc’s technological sovereignty, a theme echoed in recent initiatives such as the EU’s tech sovereignty plan to challenge US and Chinese dominance.
Letta’s warning aligns with broader concerns across the continent. The EPP chief Manfred Weber has similarly cautioned that if the EU does not act decisively, China could cripple European industry. The EU’s trade chief has also unveiled plans to force supplier diversification away from China, reflecting a growing consensus that economic dependency on Beijing is unsustainable.
For Letta, the path forward is clear: Europe must move beyond rhetoric and implement concrete measures to integrate its markets, foster innovation, and build a unified industrial base. “We don’t want to be a colony,” he reiterated. “We want to be Europeans.”
