MILAN (Reuters) -Top European Central Bank policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau urged the European Union to set up deadlines in order to speed up progress on financial integration and pooling its savings together to sustain investments.
Speaking to students from all over Europe gathered in Milan for the Young Factor conference, Villeroy de Galhau said the European Union should create a sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI) community, like it did for steel and coal after World War Two..
If it acted now and upped its game, Europe could still catch up with the United States and China on AI.
"The technology is evolving, and we could have the second mover advantage," Villeroy de Galhau, who is the Bank of France governor, said.
"We still have a chance, provided we put together our resources, talents, and money on AI. This is why I call ... for an AI European Community, putting together our resources," he said.
In order to do so the EU must find ways to retain and invest domestically more of its residents' savings, a big portion of which is currently being exported into other markets, primarily the United States, financing investments there.
The European market is not particularly attractive for financial capital given its fragmentation, Villeroy de Galhau said, calling for the measures outlined by former Italian Prime Ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta in their respective reports on European competitiveness to be swiftly adopted.
"We know what we have to do. Draghi plus Letta plus the savings and investments union. By the way, most of these measures don't have fiscal costs ... But we are too slow: it's now, or it could be never," he said.
"I really hope we can have a deadline and say: we will implement the Draghi and Letta reports, build European economic and financial sovereignty till, say, the 1st of January 2028, as we did with the single market," he added.
(Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
