Soundbites from May 8 Influence, Relevance, & Growth Conference hosted by SDA Bocconi where Bill Mayer, and Corrado Passera discuss EU challenges with Michelle Caruso Cabrera.

Today US GDP is $25 trillion, EU's $17 trillion. In 2008 they were equal. Watch the soundbites.

Michelle Caruso Cabrera, Bill Mayer, Corrado Passera, Francesco Billari

May 20 NYT titles “Europe Wants to Build a Stronger Defense Industry, but Can’t Decide How” by Patricia Cohen and Liz Alderman.

“Conflicting political visions, competitive jockeying and American dominance stand in the way of a more coordinated and efficient military machine.”

While the NYT journalists are spot on, the challenge for the European Union goes beyond the defense industry and involves sectors that are geopolitically relevant – financial services, semiconductors, internet technology, pharma, … --. “The European Union’s industries in is sub-scale in geopolitical rlevant industries” says Fernando Napolitano, CEO of NEWEST imnterviewed by Michelle Caruso Cabrera for CNBC.com. The EU is a lump sum of national champions structurally inadequate to compete at par with China and the US. “The top 5 companies in the world by market capitalization are worth $12 trillion vs EU GDP of $17 trillion”, notes Bill Mayer, Chairman Emeritus of the Aspen Institute. According to the same metric, of the top 10, 8 are from the United Staes, none is from the European Union. The only exception is represented by Airbus, the only competitor to US Boeing. Airbus is not only an industrial success story but a governance role model for future EU integration to avoid endless discussions on where the headquarter of the merged entity should be located.  “The [lack of EU growth] is very urgent … we underestimate the delay we are accumulating” says Corrado Passera, CEO of illimity and former Italy’s Minister of Industrial Development & Infrastructures.