Mario Draghi appears to have impressed key MEPs with his plans to boost sluggish EU economic growth – but not everyone is convinced.

Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank and ex-Prime Minister of Italy, is likely to publish his report on European competitiveness next week, potentially as early as Monday, but briefed MEPs on his findings yesterday (4 September).

“The great message that competitiveness is the number one issue … as the business party of Europe, we welcome this very much,” Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), told reporters after the meeting.

“The last five years were the Green Deal years … based on this [report], we open the next chapter,” he added.

Weber, who represents the European Parliament’s largest political grouping, cited the need for Airbus-style European flagship projects, and the need to ensure that environmental technologies like heat pumps and electric cars are produced in Europe rather than in the US or China.

Draghi’s report, originally due in June, was requested by Commissioner President Ursula von der Leyen, also from the EPP, last year – and follows hot on the heels from a report by fellow ex-Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

In April, Letta said he’d sounded a “big, red alarm” about a growing economic gap with the US, urging reforms to market rules on energy, telecoms and financial services.

Cautious welcome

Draghi’s findings – which are said to include specific recommendations for ten key economic sectors, perhaps on similar lines to Letta – gained a more cautious welcome from others in the Parliament.

“What I very much like … is that he indeed stands very clearly with European values” such as public services and climate change, said Bas Eickhout, co-leader of the Parliament’s Green group. “He’s sounding the alarm bell very clearly.”

“You will not see in the report anything mentioning of labour costs, because he said that’s not the problem,” Eickhout added – attempting to address a criticism that the report will be used to justify cutting workers’ wages.

Instead the report will examine Europe’s “complacency” in the wake of high energy and costs and low productivity in important high-tech sectors, he added.

Support is rather more nuanced among left-leaning MEPs.

In a statement, socialist group leader Iratxe García said any economic relaunch needed to be “built on quality jobs and affordable energy”, including a “Buy Green and European Act”.

Others, such as Manon Aubry of the Parliament’s Left group, were impressed neither by Draghi’s conclusions, nor his candour.

“It was a presentation paying lip service which didn’t say much,” Aubry told reporters after the meeting, adding that MEPs had been “left in the dark”.

“I’d like us to talk about competitiveness, but then we’d have to call into question the European trade policy that’s sold off our industry … there’s at minimum a hypocrisy, if not a fundamental contradiction,” she said.

“What is Mario Draghi’s democratic legitimacy to write such a report … did you, or anyone at all, elect him?” Aubry asked.

The Swedish automaker Volvo Cars has abandoned its plan to exclusively sell electric vehicles by 2030 due to softening demand for pure battery-powered cars.

Following the announcement on Wednesday, Volvo’s shares fell by more than 4% and have declined by 12% over the past six months.

The company also reported disappointing earnings for the first quarter and provided weak guidance during its second-quarter earnings call.

Instead of aiming to become a fully electric car manufacturer, Volvo is now targeting “90 to 100 per cent of its global sales volume by 2030 to consist of electrified cars,” which includes a mix of fully electric and plug-in hybrid models.

The remaining 0-10 per cent will allow for a limited number of mild hybrid models, if necessary.

Volvo still expects to produce 50 to 60 per cent electrified vehicles by the middle of this decade, which would position it to become a fully electric carmaker when “conditions are suitable.”

The company noted that 26 per cent of its products are fully electric cars, the highest share among its premium competitors.

Its total electrified share, including EVs and plug-in hybrids, accounted for 48% in the second quarter of this year.

Rising demand from customers for hybrid vehicles

The growing demand for hybrid vehicles and the decreasing affordability of pure electric cars have been putting pressure on electric carmakers’ profit margins.

The renowned EV maker Tesla has seen a continued decline in profit margins and slowing growth since 2023.

CEO Elon Musk has indicated a shift in consumer preference from 100% electric cars to hybrid vehicles.

Amid sluggish consumer demand and a price war in China, automakers are facing macroeconomic headwinds.

The industry is also experiencing uncertainties due to new import tariffs on Chinese-made EVs imposed by the EU and the US, with China pledging reciprocal measures.

Appeal of owning an electric vehicle has ‘diminished’

“It is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption,” Volvo stated.

“We are pragmatic and flexible while retaining an industry-leading position on electrification and sustainability.”

Government subsidies for renewable energy vehicles have previously incentivised consumers to buy fully electric cars.

However, with these incentives expiring and falling crude oil prices, the appeal of owning a fully electrified vehicle has diminished.

Volvo noted, “The slower-than-expected rollout of charging infrastructure, withdrawal of government incentives in some markets, and additional uncertainties created by recent tariffs on EVs in various markets.

With this in mind, Volvo Cars continues to see the need for stronger and more stable government policies to support the transition to electrification.”

Volvo Cars, owned by China’s Geely, is the latest major car manufacturer to scale back its ambitious plans for a purely electric vehicle transition, though it remains committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

In July, Luca De Meo, CEO of French automaker Renault, warned that customers are not yet ready to switch to battery-powered vehicles.

He called for more flexibility in the schedule, referring to Europe’s green energy transition and the target to shift to EVs by 2035.

German luxury carmaker Porsche also scaled back its target of selling 80% fully electric vehicles.

Other mainstream car manufacturers, including Ford and Fiat, have also expressed concerns that EV-only plans by 2030 may be over-ambitious.”

There’s a one in 13.7 million chance that a passenger anywhere in the world will die onboard an aircraft, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US analysed global passenger and fatality data between 2018 and 2022 and found deaths on planes dropped by an average of 7 per cent year over year.

Those results follow a pattern of “continuous improvement” that started in 1968 when the death rate fell an average of 7.5 per cent per year even as more flights took off and landed.

It comes as US aircraft manufacturer Boeing faces a series of technical issues that forced the company to ground the test flights of their 777-9 model. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) also reportedly has launched inspections into the 787 Dreamliner due to faulty pilot seat movements.

Death rate 36 per cent higher in some countries

The incident rate depends on what countries people are flying to and from, with researchers dividing countries into three tiers for low, medium and high risk based on air safety record.

The lowest risk is the Tier 1 group which includes the European Union, Australia, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Some examples of countries in the Tier 2 group include Bahrain, Bosnia, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

The rest of the world’s countries are in Tier 3 or the high-risk group.

For the first two tiers, the death risk falls to one per 80 million passenger boardings, the study found. These countries account for more than half of the world’s 8 billion people.

“At that rate, a passenger could on average choose one flight at random every day for 220,000 years before succumbing to a fatal accident,” the report continued.

The fatality risk is around 36 per cent higher for tier 3 countries, the study found, but fatalities are still falling.

“While [these nations] continue to get better over time, their passenger death risk remains many times as high as the risk elsewhere,” the study says.

The study also didn’t include any accidents that were direct attacks on passengers, like a suicide bombing at Kabul airport in 2021 that killed 170 Afghans and 13 US military troops.

Over 4,000 deaths from catching COVID on a plane

The study accounts for the COVID-19 pandemic which they defined as the period from March 2020 to December 2022. While there were fewer airline passengers during the pandemic, those who travelled faced a “new source of danger” if exposed to the virus on a flight.

Airlines at the time told passengers that COVID-19 transmission was “all but impossible,” the researchers say in their study, even though the US surgeon general estimated that 96 per cent of flights during that time had at least one positive passenger.

Despite that new risk, researchers say that there “is no evidence that those who did fly suffered a greater risk of death from plane crashes or attacks than would have been expected had the pandemic never occurred”.

“Outside of on-board transmission of COVID-19, passenger safety did improve sharply,” the study said.

In total, the paper estimates that roughly 4,760 people died from contracting a COVID-19 infection on a flight from March 2020 to December 2022.

The MIT researchers do admit that it’s hard to know the exact number of deaths since passengers who got an infection after a flight could’ve passed it on to others who might have passed away.

“These estimates about COVID-19 deaths are necessarily imprecise,” the study says. “And while they use lower-end parameter estimates, they could well be too high”.

Their data also doesn’t count any passengers under 18 and doesn’t differentiate the age of any passengers over 65, which the researchers say is important because mortality goes sharply up for the elderly.