Mario Draghi's report influential says Mattarella

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 20 - Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Friday highlighted the relevance of a report on EU competitiveness released earlier this month by former Italian premier and European central banker Mario Draghi at a meeting organized by the foundation for technological innovation Cotec on technological sovereignty and the environment in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
    "Once again, a current theme of great relevance has been chosen, which is part of an ongoing strategic debate in Brussels on which Mario Draghi has also recently intervened with an influential report", the president said.
    "In the report - focusing as we all know on European competitiveness - the productivity gap between the European Union, United States and China is mainly blamed on the technological sector", Matteralla told the Cotec meeting in Las Palmas.
    The president went on to note that the EU is "weak in emerging technologies that will drive future growth: only four of the world's most important 50 technological firms are, in fact, European.
    "We can therefore agree on the fact that Europe must deeply refocus its collective efforts to fill the innovation gap", he noted.
    Mattarella noted that Europe should "push the accelerator, implementing measures that allow it to promote its industrial capabilities in highly technological sectors".
    It must boost its presence in sectors that will increasingly impact lives in the future and "the possibility of responding to the numerous challenges of the future - environmental sustainability, the fight against phenomena of climate change, human health" in order to grant citizens improved living conditions. (ANSA).