As national leaders increasingly blame EU regulations for everything that is wrong in their economies, a powerful deregulation narrative has taken hold across Europe. The Draghi Report’s alarming framing of a “competitiveness crisis” has been weaponised to justify dismantling decades of regulatory achievements. But the evidence tells a more nuanced story.
Here are 5 myths surrounding the EU Competitiveness debate:
Myth 1: “The EU economy is falling hopelessly behind the US”
It isn’t. Several major EU economies, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, match or exceed US productivity per hour worked. As shown by Gabriel Zucman, the GDP gap is mostly explained by Europeans working fewer hours, a societal choice, not an economic failure. Sources: OECD - OCDE Productivity Database (2025); Bruegel - Improving economic policy (2023)
Myth 2: “EU regulations only impose costs”
They don’t. EU life expectancy is 81.7 years vs. 79 in the US. Income inequality is far lower (Gini: 29.6 vs. 39.8). Even the wealthiest Americans live shorter lives than the wealthiest Europeans. When adjusted for inequality and hours worked, the US drops from 1st to 7th among G8 nations on human development. Sources: Sources: Eurostat (2025); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2025).
Myth 3: “EU regulation stifles growth”
The opposite. The Single Market replaces 27 divergent national rules with a single common standard, reducing bureaucracy, not adding to it. It raised GDP per capita by 12–22% since 1993, supports 56 million trade-linked jobs, and completing it could add another 5–8.6% of GDP. Source: Jonne Lehtimäki & David Sondermann, 2020
Myth 4: “EU rules aren’t fit for purpose”
The problem isn’t the rules, it’s their uneven enforcement. And enforcement is getting worse: the number of Commission infringement proceedings against non-compliant States has dropped by half under von der Leyen, from 848 in 2020 to 552 in 2025, reducing governments’ incentive to comply with EU common rules Daniel Kelemen Tommaso Pavone 2022
Myth 5: “EU regulations are to blame for Europe’s economic underperformance”
National governments are. Most harmful barriers to the EU economy originate at the national level, where they amount to tariffs of 44% on goods and 110% on services. Governments maintain fragmented service markets, divergent tax regimes, and restricted labour mobility — then blame Brussels rather than their own protectionism. OECD data shows most Member States have actually increased services trade restrictiveness over the past decade International Monetary Fund (via Draghi Report, 2024)
The cumulative effect of these myths is to reinforce the false narrative that the EU shackles national economies, handing the Eurosceptic extreme right a free electoral boost.
Meanwhile, the Commission’s own “simplification” saves just 0.07% of GDP - as highlighted by Sander Tordoir Lucas Guttenberg Nils Redeker in POLITICO Europe
What the EU economy urgently needs is greater joint investment: a theme largely neglected by leaders who remain hesitant to share sovereignty, despite unprecedented public demand
How long will national leaders keep blaming Brussels for barriers they maintain themselves?
PS None of the above would have been possible without the work of several nonprofit organisations - from SOMO to Corporate Europe Observatory, CAN, EEB, WWF, AccessNow and academics - that contributed to debunk many of the myths surrounding this debate.