Former ECB Chief Says ‘Illusion’ of EU as a Global Power Dashed

Europeans mostly don't try to compete in anything that isn't high margin and low turnover on tech generations. Marketing is everything and the general public for the past like 50 years have been pretty racist in regards to the abilities of anyone that isn't of European descent. Also some sort of hubris that all the people in the lands that were subject to centuries of conquest and genocide would prefer European goods and entertainment over their own and their neighbors for whatever reason (imperialist mindset that I do not believe Europeans or Americans have gotten over yet)

Post-WW2 it started with Japanese products are trash until Japanese meant premium. Then it went South Korean and Taiwanese are trash until both became premium. Then it became Chinese is trash until it became Chinese is the whole gamut of trash to premium. Now it's developing the same with Vietnam and India. Probably progress through Indonesia and other countries over time. Europe have mostly missed the lead in new market categories for decades. Instead just leaned into marketing legacy companies as luxury.

Then numerous countries outside had luxury car brands become popular. Every country has some milleniums of alcohol history and would end up with luxury alcohol brands and people don't drink as much as before. German kitchen knives make way for Japanese kitchen knives and what shouldn't have been a surprise, there are numerous blacksmithing families that can trace back centuries all over the world. French and Italian cooking export well but not as well as food cultures from west to east Asia and increasingly east Africa as well, Mexican/Mayan food. Luxury clothing, that's low hanging fruit for others to compete in. New luxury brands every year. Watches, the same.

Art, every country has artist. Every country may have a glut of artists. European art was already overshadowed by American art by the end of the 70s. Just so happens to seem like prevelence of art goes up with wealth. Decadent times make for decadent lifestyle and decadent pursuits. But how that abundance of wealth came to be in Europe; it was military and imperialism. It was pretty much technological superiority to attack and coerce the most lopsided trade as possible. That era ends and Europe doesn't shift to competing in tech. Science/engineering is from my view looked down upon socially. Instead of pursuing spiritual wealth, science/engineers pursue monetary wealth and aren't spending time working on speech skills. But technological superiority over other countries is what enabled the wealth of the continent

What tech companies were strong in Europe ended up overshadowed by American and Japanese companies and then eventually South Korean and Chinese companies. I presumably expect the same will be the rise in prominence of international Indian and Vietnamese companies because it'll be years of cultural recalibration to focus on how to be competitive in future markets rather than a populace where the youths focus on art/influencing. Nokia, Erricson, SAP, Bosch, Philips - overshadowed. At least there's ASML. My whole life there were always some people that obsessed with having a BMW so they'd pay the premium to end up not feeling any better about their purchase compared to someone with a Honda.

The saying quantity is a quality itself, in the case of Toyota and Honda, they have both so you can go anywhere in the world and every car mechanic knows how to work on them fast and knows where to get parts easy, fast, cheap. Whole car junkyards specialized in salvaging Honda and Toyota parts for repair. That is a form of cultural significance born from quantity and quality. European exports don't get that quantity half and they're not really throwing out some huge gap of quality if any at all

Europe has lagged in software more than hardware. Qualcomm adreno graphics drivers compared to ARM Mali drivers and PowerVR. Such things matter not just for gamers but anyone doing simulations or data science. It matters for European GPU products to compete for HPC workstations and data centers. These companies have been around for a long time but for some reason haven't expanded like Nvidia, AMD, Intel have. And now ARM is vulnerable to RISC-V competitors knibbling away first with cheap microcontrollers with heavyweights like Alibaba. ARM itself having it's ARM licensing fee business eaten away at by custom designers Iike Qualcomm and Apple. Semiconductor development is ultra expensive, I don't see the strategy developing to not lose market share over time. Part of that is the US's fault for trade wars and export controls but that's still a case of how Europe is not globally powerful on its own, it has to follow as the US says.

Military. Military development is expensive. Funded by a countries whole tax base and from external sales. Post-WW2 reassertion on colonial holdings failed and you saw militaries across western Europe atrophy and the US take up the heavy R&D spending. The last ten years for all the bad news about the F-35, it sells a lot more than Rafales, Gripens, Typhoons, whatever to European countries. European countries buy American jets instead of European because Europe has no F-35 equivalent. Now western European countries are scrambling to fund and development 6th generation fighter jets skipping the 5th while China and the US are much closer. China practically certain to be deploying by 2035. The US probably.

Europe FCAS and GCAP someday. If they can manage no delays, 2040s. Everyone has delays so more like closer to 2050s.

Got to reach design agreements between countries and fund it. And that funding part being something to focus on because Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale aren't the only non-US jets out there anymore while Russia was too broke to really be exporting after the fall of the Soviet Union. Plus any issues from the Gripen and Typhoon from any US parts that the US could block sales to other countries on the basis of. Again example of US dominance over Europe being parts reliance on the US so European countries are limited to selling to countries that the US wants to block. So internationally Russian jets are selling again and Chinese jets are selling especially after their 4th best jet shot down a Rafale.

Then India works on their own jets even if they're low volume, it would be poor planning to expect them to not progress in their 4.5 and 5th gen research and development where they want to minimize foreign parts. It is a country with a large economy and a strong culture of engineering. They already design and manufacture much of their missiles. Because of their engineering and manufacturing base, I expect a long term military independence better than the EU. They may have more blunders but they'll have more opportunities to blunder with their resources. Learn a lot in blunders. Poor economy Pakistan has the JF-17 which exports well.

Big looming threat to European exports being China, South Korea, and North Korea. Russia is a known thing. If they actually deliver some SU-57's that'll put a damper internationally on fighter jet interest from the rest of European offerings. Pakistan JF-17 is way cheaper than a Rafale. China's 4th best jet shot down a Rafle and it's way cheaper. Whenever they start delivering J-35's to external customers, what's the point of a Gripen or Rafale when equivalent jets from Asia are cheaper. South Korean KF-21 should be more advanced than anything Europe produces. Poland going for those South Korean tanks. Everyone going for South Korean tanks. South Korean and Japanese naval surface ships. Destroyers and whatnot. North Korean missiles and artillery platforms. Brazil wants to make their own jets and already make a good amount of their own missiles and aircrafts with Embraer. Indonesia going for that South Korean jet.

I feel like once the deals that have been in the works for Rafale, Typhoons, Gripens these past few years are done, it's over for them. Those 3 won't have replacements to compete with the latest American, Chinese, South Korean, Russian aircraft anytime soon and they won't be worth the cost over used American fighters, Pakistan JF-17, and older Russian, Chinese aircraft. That'll be an issue for European weapon systems across the board. Not advanced enough compared to US ones for rich countries and not price competitive with equivalent Asian products

European companies and start up scene did not keep up internationally and their ability to fund alternatives to American weaponry suffers because so. European weapons are too expensive to be competitive internationally as other countries have caught up and sell better priced weapons/replace their European procurements with their own domestic. Europe is in an odd spot of wanting independence from the US but possibly being some decades away from being able to do so. At least militarily and for global influence, military plays a major roles there. Software services I imagine independence from the US being possible but it'll be difficult funding American software displacement with upstart in comparison services

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Europeans mostly don't try to compete in anything that isn't high margin and low turnover on tech generations. Marketing is everything and the general public for the past like 50 years have been pretty racist in regards to the abilities of anyone that isn't of European descent. Also some sort of hubris that all the people in the lands that were subject to centuries of conquest and genocide would prefer European goods and entertainment over their own and their neighbors for whatever reason (imperialist mindset that I do not believe Europeans or Americans have gotten over yet)
Post-WW2 it started with Japanese products are trash until Japanese meant premium. Then it went South Korean and Taiwanese are trash until both became premium. Then it became Chinese is trash until it became Chinese is the whole gamut of trash to premium. Now it's developing the same with Vietnam and India. Probably progress through Indonesia and other countries over time. Europe have mostly missed the lead in new market categories for decades. Instead just leaned into marketing legacy companies as luxury.
Then numerous countries outside had luxury car brands become popular. Every country has some milleniums of alcohol history and would end up with luxury alcohol brands and people don't drink as much as before. German kitchen knives make way for Japanese kitchen knives and what shouldn't have been a surprise, there are numerous blacksmithing families that can trace back centuries all over the world. French and Italian cooking export well but not as well as food cultures from west to east Asia and increasingly east Africa as well, Mexican/Mayan food. Luxury clothing, that's low hanging fruit for others to compete in. New luxury brands every year. Watches, the same.
Art, every country has artist. Every country may have a glut of artists. European art was already overshadowed by American art by the end of the 70s. Just so happens to seem like prevelence of art goes up with wealth. Decadent times make for decadent lifestyle and decadent pursuits. But how that abundance of wealth came to be in Europe; it was military and imperialism. It was pretty much technological superiority to attack and coerce the most lopsided trade as possible. That era ends and Europe doesn't shift to competing in tech. Science/engineering is from my view looked down upon socially. Instead of pursuing spiritual wealth, science/engineers pursue monetary wealth and aren't spending time working on speech skills. But technological superiority over other countries is what enabled the wealth of the continent
What tech companies were strong in Europe ended up overshadowed by American and Japanese companies and then eventually South Korean and Chinese companies. I presumably expect the same will be the rise in prominence of international Indian and Vietnamese companies because it'll be years of cultural recalibration to focus on how to be competitive in future markets rather than a populace where the youths focus on art/influencing. Nokia, Erricson, SAP, Bosch, Philips - overshadowed. At least there's ASML. My whole life there were always some people that obsessed with having a BMW so they'd pay the premium to end up not feeling any better about their purchase compared to someone with a Honda.
The saying quantity is a quality itself, in the case of Toyota and Honda, they have both so you can go anywhere in the world and every car mechanic knows how to work on them fast and knows where to get parts easy, fast, cheap. Whole car junkyards specialized in salvaging Honda and Toyota parts for repair. That is a form of cultural significance born from quantity and quality. European exports don't get that quantity half and they're not really throwing out some huge gap of quality if any at all
Europe has lagged in software more than hardware. Qualcomm adreno graphics drivers compared to ARM Mali drivers and PowerVR. Such things matter not just for gamers but anyone doing simulations or data science. It matters for European GPU products to compete for HPC workstations and data centers. These companies have been around for a long time but for some reason haven't expanded like Nvidia, AMD, Intel have. And now ARM is vulnerable to RISC-V competitors knibbling away first with cheap microcontrollers with heavyweights like Alibaba. ARM itself having it's ARM licensing fee business eaten away at by custom designers Iike Qualcomm and Apple. Semiconductor development is ultra expensive, I don't see the strategy developing to not lose market share over time. Part of that is the US's fault for trade wars and export controls but that's still a case of how Europe is not globally powerful on its own, it has to follow as the US says.
Military. Military development is expensive. Funded by a countries whole tax base and from external sales. Post-WW2 reassertion on colonial holdings failed and you saw militaries across western Europe atrophy and the US take up the heavy R&D spending. The last ten years for all the bad news about the F-35, it sells a lot more than Rafales, Gripens, Typhoons, whatever to European countries. European countries buy American jets instead of European because Europe has no F-35 equivalent. Now western European countries are scrambling to fund and development 6th generation fighter jets skipping the 5th while China and the US are much closer. China practically certain to be deploying by 2035. The US probably.
Europe FCAS and GCAP someday. If they can manage no delays, 2040s. Everyone has delays so more like closer to 2050s.
Got to reach design agreements between countries and fund it. And that funding part being something to focus on because Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale aren't the only non-US jets out there anymore while Russia was too broke to really be exporting after the fall of the Soviet Union. Plus any issues from the Gripen and Typhoon from any US parts that the US could block sales to other countries on the basis of. Again example of US dominance over Europe being parts reliance on the US so European countries are limited to selling to countries that the US wants to block. So internationally Russian jets are selling again and Chinese jets are selling especially after their 4th best jet shot down a Rafale.
Then India works on their own jets even if they're low volume, it would be poor planning to expect them to not progress in their 4.5 and 5th gen research and development where they want to minimize foreign parts. It is a country with a large economy and a strong culture of engineering. They already design and manufacture much of their missiles. Because of their engineering and manufacturing base, I expect a long term military independence better than the EU. They may have more blunders but they'll have more opportunities to blunder with their resources. Learn a lot in blunders. Poor economy Pakistan has the JF-17 which exports well.
Big looming threat to European exports being China, South Korea, and North Korea. Russia is a known thing. If they actually deliver some SU-57's that'll put a damper internationally on fighter jet interest from the rest of European offerings. Pakistan JF-17 is way cheaper than a Rafale. China's 4th best jet shot down a Rafle and it's way cheaper. Whenever they start delivering J-35's to external customers, what's the point of a Gripen or Rafale when equivalent jets from Asia are cheaper. South Korean KF-21 should be more advanced than anything Europe produces. Poland going for those South Korean tanks. Everyone going for South Korean tanks. South Korean and Japanese naval surface ships. Destroyers and whatnot. North Korean missiles and artillery platforms. Brazil wants to make their own jets and already make a good amount of their own missiles and aircrafts with Embraer. Indonesia going for that South Korean jet.
I feel like once the deals that have been in the works for Rafale, Typhoons, Gripens these past few years are done, it's over for them. Those 3 won't have replacements to compete with the latest American, Chinese, South Korean, Russian aircraft anytime soon and they won't be worth the cost over used American fighters, Pakistan JF-17, and older Russian, Chinese aircraft. That'll be an issue for European weapon systems across the board. Not advanced enough compared to US ones for rich countries and not price competitive with equivalent Asian products
European companies and start up scene did not keep up internationally and their ability to fund alternatives to American weaponry suffers because so. European weapons are too expensive to be competitive internationally as other countries have caught up and sell better priced weapons/replace their European procurements with their own domestic. Europe is in an odd spot of wanting independence from the US but possibly being some decades away from being able to do so. At least militarily and for global influence, military plays a major roles there. Software services I imagine independence from the US being possible but it'll be difficult funding American software displacement with upstart in comparison services