DRAGHI IN AACHEN: EUROPE ALONE BEFORE THE TEST OF SOVEREIGNTY - Francesco Mancini - ETHICA SOCIETAS-Rivista di scienze umane e sociali

From the 2026 Charlemagne Prize, a speech on the transition from incomplete integration to European political responsibility

Abstract: Mario Draghi’s speech in Aachen, delivered on the occasion of the 2026 International Charlemagne Prize award ceremony, takes on the significance of a political diagnosis of the state of the European Union. The former President of the European Central Bank and former Italian Prime Minister was honored for his contribution to the stabilization of the Monetary Union and to European integration, yet his address focused primarily on the future: a Europe exposed to geopolitical, economic, technological, and military pressures, no longer able to rely on the historical conditions that had once guaranteed its security and prosperity. Draghi described the current phase not merely as a moment of danger, but as a moment of revelation: for the first time, the Union is forced to acknowledge that no European State can defend its sovereignty alone. This contribution analyzes the meaning of the speech, highlighting the connection between strategic autonomy, common investments, shared responsibility, industrial capacity, and the transformation of the Union from a regulatory space into a genuine political actor.

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versione italiana

Other contributions on the political role of Europe:

DRAGHI PARLA DEL FUTURO IN UNA EUROPA CHE ANCORA PENSA NEL PASSATO

SERVE UNA EUROPA PIÙ FORTE CHE CENTRALIZZI L’ECONOMIA E IL FISCO

L’INTERVENTO DI MARIO DRAGHI AL MEETING 2022 DI RIMINI [CON VIDEO]

The Charlemagne Prize and the Return of the European Question

The awarding of the 2026 International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen to Mario Draghi does not merely represent recognition of an institutional biography. The prize, granted to personalities who have made a significant contribution to European unity, was awarded to the former President of the European Central Bank and former Italian Prime Minister for his role in stabilizing the Monetary Union and for his commitment to a Europe that is economically strong and politically sovereign.

The context, however, makes the recognition particularly significant. Draghi did not deliver a celebratory speech, but rather a speech of warning and political construction. He stated that Europe can no longer pretend that what lies ahead will be easy, because the pressure on the continent is profound and increasing. At the same time, he defined the current phase not only as a moment of danger, but also as a moment of revelation.

This formulation contains the core of the speech, because the crisis is not only a threat, but also a process of unveiling. For decades, Europe was able to leave unresolved issues suspended because it was protected by favorable external conditions: security guaranteed by the United States, growth founded on global openness, relatively accessible energy, integrated markets, technology developed elsewhere, delegated defense, and fragmented industrial policy. Those conditions are no longer guaranteed.

Europe “Alone”: The End of Implicit Guarantees

The strongest passage of the speech concerns the condition of the Union’s strategic solitude. Draghi stressed that, for the first time since 1949, there is a possibility that the United States may no longer guarantee European security under the conditions once taken for granted, while China does not provide an alternative point of reference.

This is not a rhetorical rupture with the Atlantic alliance, but rather an acknowledgment that Europe can no longer build its security, industrial policy, and technological autonomy upon the indefinite permanence of the post-war international order. The Aachen speech therefore marks the transition from a Europeanism of external protection to a Europeanism of responsibility.

Draghi does not propose a closed or self-sufficient Europe, but a Europe capable of standing in the world without depending entirely on the decisions of others. Strategic autonomy, in this perspective, is not isolation; it is the capacity for choice. It is the minimum condition necessary for the Union to defend its interests, values, and social model without being forced to submit to the pressure of powers that are more integrated, faster, and more willing to use economic, technological, and military force as political instruments.

From National Sovereignty to Shared Sovereignty

One of the most interesting elements of the speech is the overcoming of the opposition between national sovereignty and European integration. Draghi observed that even political parties that built their identity around national sovereignty now recognize that no European nation can defend it alone.

Here lies a decisive conceptual passage: sovereignty in contemporary Europe is not preserved by reducing integration, but by constructing common instruments capable of making sovereignty effective. The formal sovereignty of States remains intact on paper, but it becomes fragile if it lacks industry, energy, defense, technology, finance, digital infrastructure, productive capacity, and negotiating power.

In other words, Draghi overturns classical sovereigntist rhetoric. His speech highlights that the problem is not how much sovereignty must be ceded to Europe, but how much real sovereignty is lost if Europe fails to act together. National sovereignty in the twenty-first century risks becoming an emotional formula if it is not supported by a political scale adequate to global competition.

From a Mosaic of Interests to Binding Commitments

The Aachen speech insists on the necessity of transforming current mechanisms of cooperation into clear and binding commitments. Draghi referred to the theme of mutual responsibility among Member States as the foundation of every political community, affirming that every community is shaped by its understanding of reciprocal obligation.

His speech possesses significant institutional relevance. Until now, the European Union has often functioned as a compromise among national interests, common constraints, and shared rules. This model guaranteed stability, but it reveals evident limits whenever rapid decisions, common investments, shared risks, protection of strategic sectors, and responses to geopolitical shocks become necessary.

Draghi’s request is to move from intermittent cooperation to stable political responsibility. It is no longer sufficient to coordinate only when emergencies explode; permanent instruments for decision-making, financing, and implementation must be constructed. This is the point at which the speech assumes an implicitly federal tone: Europe can no longer remain merely a regulated market; it must become a collective capacity for action.

Competitiveness, Investment, and Political Power

The economic dimension is central. In his report on European competitiveness, Draghi had already raised the issue of the scale of investments required to prevent the Union’s industrial and technological decline. In Aachen, he reiterated the necessity for extremely high levels of investment, estimated by the press at approximately €1.2 trillion per year for the continental relaunch.

This figure should not be interpreted merely as an economic quantity, but as a measure of the distance between political ambition and available instruments. Defense, energy transition, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, networks, research, infrastructure, space, pharmaceuticals, critical raw materials, and green industry cannot be governed through fragmented national budgets and misaligned industrial policies.

Draghi’s point is unequivocal: European sovereignty depends upon economic strength. There is no geopolitical autonomy without an industrial base; no common defense without productive capacity; no credible foreign policy without technology; no European social model without growth, innovation, and financial sustainability.

The Compromise That Is No Longer Enough

The speech also included a call for Europe to become more assertive toward the United States, observing that compromise, in its traditional forms, has not worked. This position should not be interpreted as anti-Americanism, but as European realism.

Europe has often attempted to mediate between strategic dependence and declared autonomy, between commercial openness and industrial protection, between political unity and national interests. Yet the current international context punishes indecision. The United States and China operate through industrial policies, subsidies, protections, technological control, commercial pressure, and military capability. If Europe remains only a normative space, it risks regulating a world that others produce and defend.

The grammar of mediation alone is no longer sufficient. Decisions, investments, priorities, and common instruments are now required. The culture of compromise remains essential for a pluralistic democracy, but it becomes insufficient when it translates into permanent paralysis.

The Speech as a Manifesto of Political Maturity

The great value of the Aachen speech lies in its measured severity. Draghi indulges neither in catastrophism nor in celebratory rhetoric. He does not claim that Europe is destined for decline, but neither does he suggest that integration will proceed automatically. Instead, he states clearly that Europe now stands before a choice: remain incomplete or become a political subject.

The Charlemagne Prize therefore acquires a powerful symbolic function. Aachen is the place of Carolingian memory and the historical idea of Europe. Yet Draghi brings there an entirely contemporary question: what does European unity mean in a world once again governed by powers, strategic industries, wars, energy, data, algorithms, and global value chains?

The implicit answer is that Europe can no longer remain merely a moral promise or a juridical architecture; it must become an effective political will, measured not through declarations, but through the capacity to decide together on what is costly, divisive, and binding.

Conclusion: The Moment of Revelation

Mario Draghi’s Aachen speech is one of the most significant political texts of the current European phase, almost a manifesto, because it clearly names what many governments prefer to leave ambiguous: Europe has entered an era in which its survival as a model depends upon its capacity to act as a democratic power.

The formula of European solitude does not signify abandonment, but maturity. To be “alone together” means discovering that dependence is no longer sufficient protection and that unity is no longer merely an ideal, but a historical necessity. The Union must decide whether to continue functioning as the sum of national fears or to transform itself into a political community capable of reciprocal obligations, common investments, and shared responsibility.

In Aachen, Draghi did not deliver a speech as a former central banker, but as an interpreter of the European crisis. He reminded his audience that the single currency was saved because someone understood that the irreversibility of the euro had to be made credible through an act of political will. Today the question is broader: it is no longer simply a matter of saving the currency, but of making Europe itself credible.

The future of the Union will not depend upon nostalgia for the European project, but upon its capacity to become politically mature. This means accepting that sovereignty is not a legacy to preserve, but a responsibility to build together.