00:00Europe has a problem. It's one of the world's biggest economies, but it's
00:04struggling to keep pace with the United States and China. Now this is how many of
00:08the EU's leaders like to think about Europe. One market, one economy, one bloc.
00:13The reality is often more complicated. 27 countries, 27 governments, 27 sets of
00:19national interests, and the result is a union that's more fragmented than its
00:23leaders would like. And that's becoming harder to ignore. Europe's economy is
00:27growing more slowly than America's. It's falling behind in technologies like AI,
00:31relying on Chinese imports, and still dependent on the US for security. Bloomberg
00:36Economics says that without major reforms, that gap is only going to widen. That's
00:41why political and business leaders across the continent are again calling for
00:44more integration, more cross-border investment, bigger banks, bigger companies,
00:50more defense cooperation. In other words, a closer union. But that's where Europe runs
00:55into an identity crisis. Governments support integration in principle until it
00:59comes to their own industries, their own companies, or their own control.
01:03Now Europe's leaders increasingly agree on the ingredients, but the question is
01:07whether they can agree on the recipe, the secret sauce that's needed. But if they
01:11can't, Europe risks see more of its hard-won gains eaten away.
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