There are 44 countries in Europe and across all of them there’s an estimated 32 million active enterprises, according to 2022 data from the European Commission. However, growth has been pretty bleak in the past few years. The European Central Bank (ECB) estimated growth in 2023 to be 0.6%, and is only projecting a marginal improvement of 0.8% in 2024. To put that in context, in the USA GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and both Reuters and the World Bank have put China’s 2023 growth at 5.2%. So what is Europe doing wrong? In this episode of The Big Question, Angela Barnes sits down with Fredrik Persson, president of Business Europe, to discuss how to make Europe a competitive place to do business again. The Big Question: IEA boss shares candid views on climate reality Business Europe represents 36 of Europe’s national business federations - all 27 of the EU member states, plus a few more including the UK and Ukraine. When asking their members what they think is causing a lack of growth and hampering competitiveness, three key topics are brought up: energy, regulation and openness of trade. “The cost...