12:43 - 4.05.2026

---

April 4, Fineko/abc.az. Pierre Wunsch, the Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the EU continues to adhere to an outdated economic model and is not adapting to the new geopolitical reality dominated by the U.S. and China.

ABC.AZ reports that according to Wunsch, the era of free trade and strict restrictions on state support is gone, and faith in the stability of the liberal model is naive. Energy-intensive industries are particularly vulnerable, where Europe faces high costs but is still trying to maintain production.

Wunsch also noted that the EU avoids difficult trade-offs between climate policy, competitiveness and market openness. This, in his opinion, leads to a lag in innovations and reduces Europe's influence on global standards in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotics.

He cited tight political control as one of the key reasons: European democracies, in his assessment, are less and less able to make real strategic decisions.