Building a Movement That Helps Europe Deliver

Executive overview

Europe does not have an ideas problem. It has a delivery problem, and EPIC measures it.

The proof sits in EPIC’s own data. In September 2024 Mario Draghi gave Europe 383 recommendations to restore its competitiveness. By July 2026, 60 of them had become binding EU law in full: 15.7 percent. Counting partial implementation, 158 of 383 have moved (41.3 percent). And this already slow pace is falling. Between September 2025 and January 2026 the combined index rose 7.6 points, about 1.9 points a month. Between January and July 2026 it rose 2.4, about 0.4 a month. We know this because EPIC, in partnership with KEFiM, built the instrument that counts it: the Draghi Observatory.

The same method now covers enlargement. EPIC’s Integration Readiness Index at readinessindex.eu, co-published with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in June 2026, scores ten candidate countries against the last country to finish accession, Croatia in 2011. We found that Ukraine and Moldova have overtaken parts of the Western Balkans, and that Türkiye is less ready today than it was in 2021.

Two of our trackers are live. Four more are in preparation: AI, Longevity, Defence and Space, and Housing.

Our argument, in one paragraph. Measuring the gap is half the work. The other half is getting the evidence used. Each observatory relies on an independent expert panel, and each finding comes with a proposal: the July Draghi update proposes a European Competitiveness Act, and the July Single Market report proposes a study to put a current number on completing the Single Market. A Management Board, a ten-member Youth Advisory Board, interns and partners such as KEFiM and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation take that work to Brussels, to national capitals and to the media. EU Insider, EPIC’s daily news platform, puts our numbers in front of readers who come for the news. This is what EPIC means by a movement: people who use evidence to push Europe to deliver. Our conclusions remain independent of every partner and sponsor.

This review covers EPIC from its foundation in 2024 to July 2026. It keeps the formal structure of an annual review. The chapters that follow do not restate the argument; they show the work behind it: the organisation, the research, how the findings travelled, the partners, and what comes next.

Headline outcomes to date

• A measurement model that works. The Draghi Observatory turned the EU’s central competitiveness agenda into a scored public record, updated three times since September 2025.
• A count the press uses. Draghi Observatory findings have been reported by the Financial Times, The Economist, POLITICO, Bloomberg, Le Monde and Handelsblatt, among others.
• A second flagship. The Enlargement Observatory applies the same discipline to the EU’s enlargement decisions.
• Four indexes in preparation. AI, Longevity, Defence and Space, and Housing, each built on the same method: take a commitment, score what has been done, publish the result.
• A daily platform. EU Insider (euinsider.eu), EPIC’s own news platform, reports on EU policy every day and carries observatory findings to its readers between releases.
• A proposal for every finding. A European Competitiveness Act for the Draghi agenda, a new Cecchini-style study of the Single Market, and, for hybrid and cyber threats, a Hybrid Threat Response Protocol and a European Cyber Guard.
• A structure behind the work. A five-member Management Board and a ten-member Youth Advisory Board drawn from seven countries, with interns and independent expert panels.

Countless reports are published in Brussels and across the Member States. New targets and recommendations are announced and summits are held, but delivery stays fragmented, slow or invisible. EPIC’s July 2026 Draghi update puts it bluntly: Draghi’s diagnosis is now broadly accepted across the EU institutions, and competitiveness has become the organising language of EU politics, yet most of what has been adopted is legal architecture (frameworks, platforms, monitoring duties) rather than the market outcomes Draghi asked for. The hard reforms, deeper capital markets, lower energy costs, telecoms scale and a completed Single Market, remain the weakest on delivery.

The pattern is measurable. The EU moves fastest where competitiveness wears a security badge: defence sits at 78.6 percent combined implementation, on a small base of 14 measures. It moves slowest where reform forces market outcomes: energy, the largest sector with 83 measures, sits at 21.7 percent.

EPIC was built around six gaps that keep this pattern hidden:

• Delivery. Europe knows what to do and struggles to execute at speed and scale. Our observatories score delivery against the law actually adopted, so the media and the public can see through the complexity of bureaucracy and jargon to what has actually been done.
• Accountability. Public debate rewards announcements, not implementation. Our trackers are updated on a fixed cycle and rank Commission departments by results, so undelivered promises stay on the public record.
• Translation. Complex choices stay trapped in expert language. Through EU Insider, explainers, media, podcasts and events, Europeans get a reliable, clear assessment of where each process stands, at a time of heavy disinformation.
• Convening. Institutions, industry, experts and young leaders discuss the same problem in separate rooms. Roundtables, forums, expert panels and university platforms open the Brussels bubble to fresh, often more determined and better informed voices.
• Coherence. Competitiveness, security, enlargement and technology are debated separately. The Strategy for Europe Programme and one method across all observatories address a fragmented regulatory environment and a fragmented policy debate with one mindset.
• Community. Reform lacks a broad base that combines expertise with civic energy. The Youth Advisory Board, fellows and internships show people that they can take part in the policy debate in Brussels, and how.

Legal foundation

EPIC is a Belgian ASBL registered in Brussels, listed in the EU Transparency Register (683253994641-35) and VAT-registered (BE1016989669). Registration in the Transparency Register means any institution EPIC engages with can verify who it is.

Brand, website and manifesto

The website thinkepic.eu is the institutional home. The two flagship trackers run on their own domains, draghiwatch.eu and readinessindex.eu, and are brought together on the thinkepic.eu Observatories page, which also announces the four indexes in preparation.

Governance and people

In 2026 EPIC renewed its governance. A Management Board sets strategic direction and oversees the work; its members serve in a personal capacity. A Youth Advisory Board brings the next generation into EPIC’s research and programmes. That is a deliberate choice: the Europeans who will live longest with the consequences of slow delivery should have a seat where it is measured. Both boards are published in full, with biographies, at thinkepic.eu/governance.

The Youth Advisory Board brings together economists, lawyers, political scientists and public servants working at PwC, the European Parliament, national ministries and leading universities.

Team and contributors

EPIC runs an internship programme with the VUB Brussels School of Governance (CSDS).

Every element of this is public and can be checked: the register entries, the governance page, and the three websites.

The three formats work as a cycle. EPIC Indexes measure implementation and readiness. EPIC Reports explain why progress stalls. EPIC Ideas propose the reform that would unblock it.

The current products:

• Draghi Observatory and Implementation Index, draghiwatch.eu, with KEFiM. Baseline September 2025, updates January and July 2026.
• Enlargement Observatory and Integration Readiness Index, readinessindex.eu, with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. IRI v1.0, June 2026.
• Single Market Watch, a recurring monitoring series. First audit February 2026; The Cost of Single Market Fragmentation report, July 2026.
• EU Insider, euinsider.eu, part of EPIC since 2025.
• Strategy for Europe Programme, directed by Krzysztof Bulski: multi-year work on identity, systems, power and Europe’s political future.
• Shape of Europe Podcast, a narrative channel for European reform and strategic imagination.

The Draghi Observatory: measuring Europe’s competitiveness promise

The Draghi Observatory changed EPIC’s role from commentator to measurer. The method is strict on purpose. Only adopted EU legal acts count as implementation. Declarations, Commission communications and proposals do not. Each of the 383 measures is assessed on its own, and the same locked method has been applied at every update.

What the July 2026 update showed:

• The pace is slowing. The combined index gained 7.6 points in the four months from September to January, about 1.9 a month. It gained 2.4 points in the six months from January to July, about 0.4 a month.
• Security moves first. The strongest movements were Russian gas phase-out, the EUR 90 billion Ukraine Support Loan and steel safeguards. Defence leads all sectors at 78.6 percent combined, on 14 measures; energy trails at 21.7 percent, on 83.
• Simplification is now measurable. The sustainability-reporting reform (Directive 2026/470) moved a Draghi measure to fully implemented. Simplification is not deregulation: EPIC counts it where it makes EU law clearer and lighter to apply.
• Departments can be ranked. For the first time EPIC ranked Commission Directorates-General by implementation. DG TRADE leads at 41.7 percent strict implementation. DG ENER, with the largest portfolio (74 measures), stands at 2.7 percent. The ranking assigns each measure to its lead department, so DG portfolios do not match the sector totals in Table 1.
• The policy ask. EPIC calls for a European Competitiveness Act: a single package on the Fit for 55 model, with measurable objectives, priority files, a public scoreboard and a binding adoption calendar.

Table 1. Implementation by sector, July 2026

The Enlargement Observatory: measuring readiness to join

Enlargement is one of the largest strategic decisions the EU faces this decade. The Commission assesses every candidate each year, in long country reports that are hard to compare with one another. The Integration Readiness Index (IRI v1.0), published in June 2026 with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, turns those reports into one comparable score for all ten candidates. Authors: Antonios Nestoras, Emil Kirjas and Bernada Cunj.

The method uses only European Commission progress reports, covers 2021 to 2025, and scores ten candidates from 0 to 10 on five indicators: State of Play, Annual Progress, Recommendation Delivery, Chapter Status and Accession Momentum. Each candidate is measured against Croatia in 2011, the last country to complete accession.

What the index showed:

• Montenegro and Albania lead the field.
• Ukraine and Moldova have overtaken Serbia and North Macedonia, despite applying years later.
• Türkiye is going backwards, from 3.25 in 2021 to 2.81 in 2025.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina fell sharply in a single year, from 4.14 in 2024 to 2.91 in 2025.

The next update will re-peg to the Commission’s autumn 2026 progress reports.

From diagnosis to fix

A diagnosis on its own changes little. EPIC pairs each one with a proposal.

From the indexes:

• The Draghi slowdown led to the call for a European Competitiveness Act: one package, one calendar, one public scoreboard for the rest of the mandate.
• Single Market fragmentation led to a proposal for a research steering group to produce a new Cecchini-style study, The Benefits of Completing the Single Market. The original Cecchini report dates from 1988; the study would give Europe a current, comprehensive estimate of what completion is worth.

From EPIC’s research:

• Hybrid threats led to From Tools to Action, commissioned by the S&D Group in the European Parliament. The EU already has the instruments; it lacks the procedure to use them at speed. EPIC proposed a Hybrid Threat Response Protocol with three graduated activation levels and parliamentary oversight, within the existing Treaties, and a European Cyber Guard: a volunteer civic corps, modelled on Estonia’s Cyber Defence League, for fact-checking, digital literacy and early warning.
• Frozen Russian assets became Collateral for Victory, a plan to turn them into a EUR 1 trillion defence fund.
• Labour shortages became WorkPass EU, a European migrant visa.

A proposal needs people to carry it into ministries, committees, boardrooms and newsrooms. Chapters 4 and 5 show who does that, and where.

The next observatories

The method transfers. Take a commitment Europe has made, define what implementation means in law or in outcomes, score it with an independent expert panel, publish the result on a fixed cycle, and propose the fix. Each new index also brings a new expert community into EPIC. Four are in preparation:

• AI Index, with IDEAS Research Institute, launch planned for 7 December 2026: how far the EU and its member states have moved from AI strategy to AI adoption, in public administration and across the economy.
• Longevity Index, with the Polish Society of Longevity Medicine and the “Długowieczność dla Każdego” Foundation, launch planned between November 2026 and January 2027: how Europe’s health, care and pension systems are adapting to longer lives and an ageing population. The launch is linked to the Warsaw Longevity Forum, 24-25 November 2026, where EPIC is a partner.
• Defence and Space Index: whether Europe keeps its defence and space commitments on spending, joint procurement and industrial capacity.
• Housing Index: the housing affordability gap across Europe, and whether national and EU measures are closing it.

EU Insider: EPIC’s daily news platform

Observatory releases come a few times a year. EU Insider (euinsider.eu) gives EPIC a daily presence. It is a news platform in its own right, with its own editorial line and news gathering, covering EU policy every day. It began before EPIC as a project run by Krzysztof Bulski, now a member of EPIC’s Management Board, who brought it into EPIC in 2025.

Most of what EU Insider publishes is original news reporting. Alongside it runs a standing lane of analysis built on EPIC’s observatories, with each figure dated to its release. That mix is the added value: EPIC’s numbers reach readers who come for the news, not only specialists who look for the data. EU Insider has about 18,000 regular readers a month.

The research portfolio

Behind the indexes sits a portfolio across eight themes. Competitiveness: the Draghi Observatory, Single Market Watch, The Cost of Single Market Fragmentation, and the two From Draghi to DNA reports. Enlargement: the Integration Readiness Index. Security and defence: Collateral for Victory, From Tools to Action, and the Defence and Space Index in preparation. Migration and labour: WorkPass EU. Digital policy: Age Verification in the Digital Single Market, and the AI Index in preparation. Public health and regulation: The End of Smoking, the TPD2 Evaluation Assessment, and the Longevity Index in preparation. Energy, industry and critical materials: work presented at the Baltic Sea Offshore Wind Summit, the Energy Security Congress and Antimony Days. Europe’s strategic coherence: the Strategy for Europe Programme and the Shape of Europe Podcast.

The full list of publications is in Annex B.

This chapter keeps three things apart. Visibility is where EPIC’s work was seen and reported. Policy discussion is where it reached the people who write and vote on EU law. Policy change is where a proposal is adopted. The first two are documented below. The third takes longer to show, and this review does not claim it.

Visibility

Across the period EPIC recorded more than 55 media mentions and TV appearances and more than 20 event participations, a conservative count.

Coverage concentrated on the Draghi Observatory. Its findings were reported by the Financial Times, The Economist, POLITICO and Bloomberg, and by national press in France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece. Several headlines carry EPIC’s count directly: Le Figaro and La Stampa reported 10 percent of the plan applied, De Standaard 11 percent. Annex A lists a selection of 25 articles in 19 outlets and five languages.

Beyond the press, the work travelled through broadcast (Euronews, TVP World, Al Qahera News), podcasts and digital formats (RESET Podcast, Watcher Post, Shape of Europe Podcast), high-level conferences (POLITICO Competitiveness Summit, GLOBSEC Re-Start Europe Forum, GLOBSEC Washington DC, US-EU Summit, Baltic Sea Offshore Wind Summit, Zagori Forum in Ioannina, Energy Security Congress, Antimony Days) and academic platforms (Harvard European Conference, VUB Brussels School of Governance, Centrum Europejskie, University of Warsaw).

EPIC’s own channels reach people without paid promotion. Over the twelve months to 26 September 2026, EPIC’s LinkedIn page reached 13,194 members and earned 29,590 impressions, with 502 reactions, 34 comments and 32 reposts (an engagement rate of about 1.9 percent); it has 1,127 followers. Its busiest month was July 2026, the month of the Draghi update and the Single Market report. EPIC’s videos on YouTube, Instagram and X have been viewed more than 500,000 times in total. On Instagram, the most-watched were the first Shape of Europe podcast trailer (47,500 views) and a report from an EPIC visit to Lebanon (45,000 views). The Instagram audience sits where EU policy is made and argued: Belgium first (26.0 percent), then Greece (16.7), Germany (6.8), Italy (6.5) and Poland (6.2), with two thirds (66.9 percent) aged 25 to 44.

Source: LinkedIn page analytics and Instagram Insights, read 28 September 2026. The LinkedIn period runs past the review’s July 2026 cut-off because LinkedIn reports a rolling year.

Policy discussion

Some of the work reached the people who write the law. EPIC has prepared two reports for the S&D Group in the European Parliament. Age Verification in the Digital Single Market was presented at a European Parliament roundtable on 12 December 2025, where EPIC offered policy options to the legislators working on the file. In June 2026, From Tools to Action, research commissioned by the S&D Group, was launched in the European Parliament by MEP Maria Guzenina. The Draghi findings have also been discussed in stakeholder meetings and partner roundtables.

The next two indexes follow the same model, with IDEAS Research Institute (AI) and, for Longevity, the Polish Society of Longevity Medicine together with the “Długowieczność dla Każdego” Foundation.

Partners co-produce observatories and research, convene stakeholders and carry findings into their own networks; EPIC reports to them on joint outputs, events and visibility. Sponsors fund data, expert panels, communication and core operations; EPIC reports to them on outputs delivered, independence safeguards and financial summaries. Sponsors do not control research conclusions.

Partners and supporters

Table 2. Next releases and launches

Each new index needs the same four things: a methodology, an expert panel, data collection and a launch. Beyond the indexes, support would give EU Insider more editorial capacity, audience analytics and wider distribution; fund annual flagship reports, foresight work, regional labs and public debates under the Strategy for Europe Programme; pay for commissioning, peer review, fellows, design and launches across the research pipeline; and keep the Shape of Europe Podcast in production. The Youth Advisory Board and the internship programme would gain young-leader pathways and a role in each observatory’s research.

Operational priorities

• Put every observatory on a published release calendar.
• Build expert panels for the four new indexes.
• Professionalise planning, budgeting, accounting and sponsor reporting.
• Build a sponsor data room: publications, media log, budgets, governance documents and impact metrics.
• Give the Youth Advisory Board a role in each observatory’s research.
• Make this review an annual publication.

EPIC was built to help Europe deliver. The first phase showed that implementation can be counted in public, and that the count is used: by the Financial Times and Le Monde, at Harvard and in the European Parliament. The next phase makes that count regular, and wider.