Reports

Europe’s financial sector stands at a crucial point in its digital transformation. While national systems like iDeal, Bizum, and Wero demonstrate successful European-led fintech innovation, the foundational digital infrastructure remains dominated by non-European providers, especially U.S. hyperscalers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

This report highlights four critical barriers to scaling and accelerating private investment in de the green transition towards a climate-neutral economy: Risk/ Reward Imbalance, Policy and Regulatory Risk, Culture and Governance. Early-stage transformative ventures often exhibit high uncertainty and unclear revenue prospects, creating a (sometimes perceived) risk/reward imbalance relative to other potential investment opportunities.

The Draghi report compares Europe to the United States and China and makes recommendations to strengthen Europe's competitiveness. In terms of scale, the Netherlands is much smaller than Europe. The Netherlands also has a more specific economic sector structure and more specific strengths and weaknesses with regard to its innovation system.

The Netherlands has a world-class fuel sector, concentrated in the Harbour Industrial Cluster (HIC) Rotterdam. It also has a chemical sector in which many companies are closely linked to the fuel sector. Both the Dutch government and Europe recognise the importance of the industry and are committed to ‘green growth’.

Het Draghi-rapport vergelijkt Europa met de Verenigde Staten en China en doet aanbevelingen om het concurrentievermogen van Europa te versterken. Nederland is qua schaal veel kleiner dan Europa. Nederland heeft ook een specifiekere economische sectorstructuur en specifiekere sterktes en zwaktes qua innovatiesysteem.