Draghi demands €800B cash boost to stem Europe’s rapid decline

Europe must invest twice as much as it did rebuilding after World War II, allow more tech and telecoms companies to merge and take drastic measures on defense spending, Mario Draghi said.

In a landmark report on how to stem the Continent's economic decline, the former European Central Bank (ECB) president said Europe needed to invest an additional €800 billion a year to drag itself out of a trough of low productivity and feeble growth that's pushing it behind the United States and China in the international pecking order. He called it an "existential challenge."

As the bloc gears up for the next five years under a newly constituted European Commission, Draghi's 400-page report is meant to guide the work for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her revamped team. Many of his recommendations will need buy-in from all the bloc's 27 governments, something that may prove elusive.