The market as ideology: An ethical analysis of the Draghi Report

Abstract

This thesis offers a normative and philosophical analysis of The Future of European Competitiveness, the report presented by Mario Draghi to the European Commission in 2024. Rather than assessing the empirical feasibility or economic effectiveness of Draghi’s proposals, it examines the values and assumptions about the market that structure the report’s diagnosis of Europe’s challenges and its proposed solutions. The central research question is [as follows]: What values and assumptions about the market underpin the Draghi Report, and in what ways do they shape its framing of problems and solutions? The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, the thesis situates the Draghi Report within the trajectory of European market integration and identifies competitiveness as its central organizing concept. Second, it examines how the report formulates fundamental values such as prosperity, equity, and environmental sustainability, showing how these are interpreted through a growth- and productivity-oriented framework. Third, it develops a normative critique of competitiveness as an organizing principle, drawing on an institutional understanding of markets to show how political choices come to be presented as technical necessities, and to assess the implications of this framing for the role of values and democratic accountability. The thesis concludes that the Draghi Report does not reject European values, but reframes them within a competitiveness-centered logic that narrows their normative scope.