Former European Central Bank President and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has joined forces with Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison to launch the Rhine Group, a new independent organization designed to bridge the gap between economic diagnosis and the actual implementation of reforms across Europe.
Mario Draghi and Patrick Collison Launch Rhine Group to Accelerate European Reforms
Launched in August 2026, the initiative brings together a high-level network of economists, tech entrepreneurs, investors, former public officials, and media executives. The organization is co-chaired by Draghi and Collison, while Luis Garicano, a professor at the London School of Economics and former member of the European Parliament, serves as its executive director.
Shifting from Diagnosis to Execution
The creation of the Rhine Group stems from growing frustration over the slow pace at which European institutions and member states have adopted recommendations from the 2024 Draghi report on European competitiveness, which was originally prepared at the request of the European Commission. Although Brussels introduced strategies such as the Competitiveness Compass and the Clean Industrial Deal, implementation has lagged behind the diagnostic phase.
According to data from the Draghi Implementation Index developed by EPIC, only a fraction of the hundreds of proposed recommendations have been fully carried out. The Rhine Group aims to address this paralysis by operating between research and politics, adding crucial intermediate steps—including priorisation, consensus-building, and coalition formation—to help forge agreements that make difficult structural decisions politically viable.
Addressing Strategic Vulnerabilities and Global Competition
The group’s founding manifesto warns that persistent economic stagnation poses severe strategic risks, threatening Europe’s capacity to fund essential public goods such as defense, healthcare, education, pensions, climate investment, and social protection. According to the group’s statements, only four of the world’s fifty largest technology companies are European, leaving the continent vulnerable across emerging technologies.
Founders highlight that the favorable international conditions of past decades—characterized by multilateral trade expansion and the American security umbrella—have deteriorated amid rising protectionism in the United States, aggressive competition from China, and riskier strategic dependencies in energy and technology. Proponents stress that decline is not inevitable, but the continent must actively rebuild its capacity to innovate and scale businesses globally.
Structure and Membership of the New Forum
The Rhine Group does not possess regulatory authority, an official EU budget, or parliamentary majority powers, functioning instead as a laboratory for ideas and strategic alliances rather than a traditional EU institution. The initiative features a prominent roster of European leaders, entrepreneurs, and academics from diverse fields.
- Mario Draghi: Co-chair, former European Central Bank President and Italian Prime Minister
- Patrick Collison: Co-chair, co-founder and CEO of Stripe
- Luis Garicano: Executive director, London School of Economics professor and former MEP
- Notable Members: Lucrezia Reichlin, Francesco Giavazzi, Andrea Pignataro, Vittorio Colao, and Luca Ferrari, among others
By bringing together individuals who typically operate in separate spheres—spanning government, academia, finance, and technology—the Rhine Group hopes to exert constructive pressure on national governments and accelerate the European Union’s journey toward greater economic competitiveness.
