At the Rimini 2025 Meeting , Mario Draghi proclaimed the end of the neoliberal world, calling for industrial power, common debt instruments and capacity for political action for Europe: “The neoliberal world is over”; “we must act now”; the EU “bystander” between Ukraine, Gaza and Iran. It is a strong judgment. But it comes from the man who has contributed more than any other to building in Europe the paradigm-privatization, liberalization, independent authorities, fiscal discipline-that today he brands as insufficient. That is why his speech is, at once, lucid and incongruent.
1) Curriculum speaking (1991-2005): privatization and market first.
- 1991-2001, Director General of the Treasury (Italy): leads the privatization season and chairs the Committee in charge (since 1993). This is the junction that paves the way for the dismantling of public intervention in strategic sectors, in the name of efficiency and integration to capital markets. Institutional source: Bank of Italy (official biography: “in 1993 he became head of the Privatization Committee”) Bank of Italy.
- 2002-2005, Goldman Sachs International: vice-chairman and managing director (member of the management committee). It is the consecration in the heart of global finance that dictated the agenda of European “regulated capitalism” in the 2000s. Source: World Economic Forum(profile) World Economic Forum.
Incongruence with Rimini 2025: Today Draghi calls for industrial policies of scale and “common debt” for critical technologies, networks and defense; in the 1990s and 2000s he was among the main wreckers of Italian public industry and promoters of the idea that it was the market, not the state, that should allocate resources.
2) The letter that changed a country (2011): conditioning austerity.
- August 5, 2011, ECB → Italian government (Trichet-Draghi): famous confidential letter calls for fiscal consolidation, labor reforms and liberalization, effectively conditioning European support on pro-market cuts and reforms. Sources: Il Sole 24 Ore publishes the full text (Sept. 29, 2011) Il Sole 24 Ore; Corriere della Sera reconstructs the “pressing” action Corriere della Sera.
Incongruence with Rimini 2025: Today Draghi argues that common investment and industrial scale are needed so as not to remain “spectators”; yesterday he called for pro-cyclical tears and bloodshed from an elected government, reducing room for maneuver for industrial and defense policies.
3) “The European social model is already gone” (2012): the symbolic phrase.
- Feb. 24, 2012, ECB President: in interview with Wall Street Journal (transcribed on ECB website) Draghi says, “The European social model has already gone”)-because of youth unemployment-and calls for labor market reforms (flexibility) European Central BankWallStreet Journal.
Incongruence with Rimini 2025: today Draghi defends the need for economic and social power to protect democracy, freedom, sovereignty; then he was certifying the end of the European social pact and calling for adjustments that have precarized without providing the “power” he claims today.
4) “Whatever it takes” (2012): saving the euro… but inside the fence
- July 26, 2012, Global Investment Conference (London): “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro“-the three words that saved the single currency. Source: ECB – verbatim European Central Bank.
That act of leadership, however, did not shake up the system: independent ECB, strict fiscal rules, states with limited margins.
Incongruence with Rimini 2025: Today Draghi calls for a Union “protagonist,” not just regulatory arbiter. But it was precisely the combination of regulator/independent authorities-even his ECB-the linchpin of the model that marginalized European industrial policy.
5) From Premier (2021-2022): common “one-time” debt, today “structural” debt
- Next Generation EU is cited in Rimini as the “broken taboo” of common-useful debtto activate investment and growth.
But as premier, Draghi administered NGEU as an extraordinary (pandemic) tool, not permanent regime change. Today, in Rimini, he instead pushes for stable forms of common debt on defense, energy, deep tech.
Incongruence with Rimini 2025: when he was in government, he never put the idea of stabilizing the common European debt for power on the political agenda (nor made it mainstream in Italy); today he presents it as a must-do path.
6) The political point: who made Europe a “spectator”?
In Rimini speech, Draghi denounces EU as “bystander” in Ukraine, Gaza and on Iran dossier. True symptom; but who helped build a regulatory Europe without instruments of power?
- Privatization and state retreat (1990s): Draghi protagonist (Bank of Italy sources) Bank of Italy.
- Austerity and pro-market reforms (2011-2013): ECB letter and “no-frills” line (sources Il Sole 24 Ore; Corriere) Il Sole 24 OreCorrieredella Sera.
- Flexibility mantra and the end of the “social model” (2012): ECB statements (source ECB/WSJ) European Central Bank.
It is precisely thissystem-industrial disarmament, fiscal restraint, depowered policy-thathas made Europe dependent on others on defense, energy and technology. Today Draghi is photographing its limitations; but it is also the legacy of his season.
7) What’s true (and useful) about Draghi 2025
It would be convenient to dismiss it as opportunist capsizing. In fact, the diagnosis is correct: jammed single market, cost-countries that amount to “internal duties” (64 percent on machinery, 95 percent on metals), target chips out of scale with respect to the U.S., common debt needed. But precisely because Draghi 2025 is convincing, its political contradiction emerges more forcefully: for 20 years he has been promoting or defending the framework that he would now like to go beyond.
On paper, Draghi went from regulator to power strategist. But the credibility of a turnaround is measured by the choices made when one had the power to make them:
- In the 1990s, it sold;
- In 2011-2013, it compressed;
- in 2012, celebrated the end of the social model;
- in 2021-2022, managed a temporary joint debt.
Today he is asking for construction. Good. But the political account of the past season-of which he is the architect-remainsopen. And you don’t close it with an inspired speech, but with choices (and admissions) that live up to the diagnosis.
