On 16 July, INCIPE held the virtual session "Europe at a Crossroads," in which Daniel Calleja, Head of the European Commission Representation in Spain, analyzed the major challenges facing the European Union. The event, introduced by INCIPE's Secretary General, Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner, and moderated by its Director General, Vicente Garrido, coincided with the 40th anniversary of Spain's accession to the European Communities.
Daniel Calleja holds degrees in Law and in Economics and Business Administration from ICADE, and has built a career of more than thirty years at the European Commission. He was a member of President Jacques Santer's cabinet and served as Head of Cabinet to Commissioners Marcelino Oreja and Loyola de Palacio between 1995 and 2004. He subsequently served as Director of Air Transport (2004–2011) and as Director General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (2012–2015), for Environment (2015–2020), and of the Commission's Legal Service (2020–2025). He currently heads the European Commission Representation in Spain. He is the author of numerous publications on European Union law and policy, including 70 años de derecho de la Unión Europea (Seventy Years of European Union Law).
Calleja opened his remarks with an assessment of Spain's forty years of membership in the Union, which he described as the most important historical milestone for the country. Since accession, Spain's GDP has doubled, the country has received 185 billion euros, and more than 1.6 million Spaniards have taken part in the Erasmus programme. The speaker also highlighted Spain's contribution to the European project, through initiatives such as European citizenship, the Cohesion Fund, and the Erasmus and Galileo programmes, as well as the Union's outreach to the Mediterranean and Latin America.
With 6% of the world's population, the European Union generates close to one fifth of global wealth. To preserve that position, Calleja recalled the words of Mario Draghi: Europe must "turn crises into union." The Draghi and Letta reports share the same diagnosis: Europe must close its competitiveness gap with the United States. The obstacles that persist in the single market, he explained, are equivalent to a tariff of 41% on trade in goods and 110% on trade in services. To address this, the Commission has put forward the Industrial Accelerator Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act, and the omnibus packages for administrative simplification. The speaker dwelt on the so-called "28th regime," which he described as the most important proposal, and which will make it possible to set up a company online within 48 hours.
Energy also featured prominently in his presentation. Calleja recalled that the Iberian Peninsula remains an energy island and that progress on interconnections is still an outstanding task. He then addressed the Savings and Investments Union, aimed at channeling European savings into the real economy and entrepreneurs, and reviewed the Union's trade agenda, which now includes agreements with 79 countries, among them those recently signed with Mercosur and India.
There can be no economy without security, the speaker stressed, noting that the Union has, for the first time, a Commissioner for Defence, and referring to instruments such as the SAFE programme. On the budgetary front, he pointed out that the negotiation of the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework is the most important decision Europe takes every seven years.
He concluded his remarks with a defense of the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty, which he described as "non-negotiable," as they form part of Europe's constitutional identity. In this context, accelerating European integration is an urgent task, one that, in Calleja's words, must be undertaken "with unity, with courage, with conviction."
The Q&A segment, in which attendees took part through the YouTube chat and by email, made it possible to explore the cost of non-integration in Europe and the legal avenues for overcoming the unanimity rule. Strategic autonomy, the capital markets, enlargement, and the demographic challenge were also discussed.
Aranzazu Álvarez