Forty years after Europe's Single Market was conceived as the cornerstone of post-war integration for millions of citizens across its member states, a divided continent is in danger of behind left behind in a fierce global competition dominated by the United States and China, Italy’s former prime minister, Enrico Letta, told FRANCE 24.

Letta, a staunch pro-European who led Europe's third-largest economy from 2013 to 2014, and who authored a recent report on ways to reimagine the Single Market for the 21st century, said that Europe's fragmentation across industries from telecoms to energy to financial services means it is punching below its weight on the new global stage.

When the Single Market was created in 1985 as a way of moving goods, people, capital and services freely across the community, the world was a much "smaller" and simpler place geopolitically, Letta said.

Still in the 'world of before'

The bloc that would eventually become the EU had fewer than half its current members, the Soviet Union still stood, the BRICs were still decades away, and China and India only made up about five percent of the world's economy.

"We are still 27, not one," Letta said, referring to the EU's current membership count. "And if we are still 27, we are still in the world of before … the world in which China and India were small countries. Today, with the BRICs, the world has completely changed. And if we are still each country alone, we are not able to be competitive enough and we are losing ground because we are fragmented."

Letta cited an example from the everyday life of ordinary Europeans – the use of an American Express credit card – as an example of one obvious way in which Europe’s failure to adopt common standards is hurting its prosperity and cohesion.

"It's not against the American credit card, it's about the fact that we are not able in Europe to build up European credit cards," Letta said, estimating that some $300 billion a year in European savings are going into the US financial market, to a US company.

Can Trump unite Europe?

"Why? For a very simple reason. We, the Italians, will never pay with a French credit card. The French will never pay with a German credit card. The Germans will never pay with a Spanish credit card. And so the fact that we are accepting that American cards are the only credit card we use, is the effect of fragmentation."

Asked whether the return of Donald Trump to the White House, with a populist "America First" agenda, would spur Europe to speak in a more united voice, or instead embolden those opposed to closer integration, Letta struck a cautious note.

"I hope that Trump's challenges will bring the European leaders to be more united," he said. But the former Italian premier voiced concern that some countries might be tempted to reach out to the US president on their own, rather than seeking a concerted approach with their fellow European leaders.

These concerns are already being borne out in some European quarters.

In Italy, the woman who now holds Letta's former job, the right-wing populist Giorgia Meloni, has been engaged in a tricky balancing act between courting the good will of Trump, while coordinating with EU leaders on key issues ranging from climate change to immigration.

Talking with Orban and Meloni

In Hungary, meanwhile, the hard-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, has fashioned himself as a staunch opponent of "liberal democracy", often taking aim at European policies and institutions – while remaining studiously within the EU fold.

Letta said he had discussed his report on ways to revamp the Single Market with all 27 EU leaders – including Meloni.

"The discussion I had with her and with the Italian government was very constructive," he said. He added that in three hours of discussions he had with Orban, he found the Hungarian leader to be open to ideas about ways to make Europe more competitive and prevent billions of euros of savings from leaving the continent as a result of fragmentation.

"I had the feeling that there's a potential of working together," he said, adding that the window is closing for Europe to coalesce in common cause.

"Now is the time to act," he said.

Interview and text by Douglas Herbert

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown