Conference Warsaw School of Economics ©Waldemar Milewicz
© Waldemar Milewicz

EU economy under pressure – conference seeks ways to boost competitiveness

04.07.2025 DE

For almost two decades, the European Union has been exposed to multiple crises – including the euro crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit and the war in Ukraine. Mario Draghi’s report of September 2024 issued a strong warning that Europe runs the risk of further losing competitiveness without a change of course. This diagnosis formed the starting point for a high-level conference at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. On 26 June 2025, the conference discussed ways to strengthen the EU economy, mainly from German and Polish perspectives. 

The Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences participated in the conference with two academic contributions.

Professor Andreas Höfer presented current EU-wide empirical results on the role of central bank independence and showed how a clearly defined institutional design contributes to safeguarding credibility and financial stability in times of political and economic tension. The analysis serves as a companion piece to a study already published in the Credit and Capital Markets journal (adding findings on Eastern European central banks).

Conference Warsaw School of Economics ©Waldemar Milewicz
© Waldemar Milewicz
Odilo Hasberg, Hachenburg graduate (centre), with Andreas Höfer and Urs Lendermann, both professors at the Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences in Hachenburg, during the conference in Warsaw, Poland

The “NextGenerationDefenseUnion: Strengthening European Defense Capabilities Through Common EU Debt?” study, presented by Hachenburg graduate Odilo Hasberg and Professor Urs Lendermann, also attracted a great deal of interest. Building on a publication in the journal Europarecht, the analysis examines the extent to which joint financing instruments akin to the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) package can speed up the development of a more resilient European security architecture.

Under the organisation of the Polish-German Academic Forum and the German Economy Research Department at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, the meeting underlined the importance of the German-Polish dialogue for the ongoing development of the European economic and financial architecture. The Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences and the SGH Warsaw School of Economics intend to further strengthen their cooperation in research, teaching and knowledge transfer.