For our grant partner spotlight this month, we talked with Ludovic Suttor-Sorel, Managing Director of the European Macro Policy Network (EMPN). EMPN’s work aligns closely with our core goals of reimagining economic governance and building stronger collective power. They have built a network of national economic think tanks working to reshape macroeconomic policy across Europe.
Ludovic Suttor-Sorel, Managing Director of the European Macro Policy Network (EMPN)
What does EMPN do, and what gap is it filling towards the new economy?
EMPN is a network of national economic think tanks, coordinated from Brussels, working to make Europe more prosperous, sustainable and sovereign. Civil society has two ways of going at that. One is outside the tent – pressure, campaigning, op-eds – and plenty of people do it well. We try to work inside it, which means speaking the language of the Ministry of Finance to push for the policy changes we think need to happen.
Our diagnosis is that much of what the new economy movement has pushed for years hasn’t landed in the real world, because the proposals aren’t ‘finance-ministry-proof’. They don’t answer the first three questions any official asks:
who is impacted, what does it cost, and who pays?
So we take economics seriously, working with top-level economists and professors. But our real edge is who else we recruit: former Finance Ministry officials, heads of unit, people who sat in the room negotiating for their country. They understand how a minister thinks, and how to draft a proposal that survives contact with a Council working group.
We find these people in each capital, give them grants to build their own think tank, and connect them into working groups. A proposal that works in Berlin gets tested by colleagues who can explain exactly why it won’t fly in Paris or Stockholm. We front-load the fights that would otherwise happen in Brussels, before ministers ever sit down. So the proposals are finance-ministry-proof, but also capital-by-capital proof.
Can you tell us a little about your recent Brussels conference, “The Economic Foundations of European Sovereignty”?
We could do everything by Zoom and email, but a network only becomes a community when people are in the same room. So twice a year we hold our EMPN conference: one day for members, one day public. The June edition ran on the 23rd and 24th, with 70 people in the room and another 160 following online.
The question we put on the table was how Europe can defend its economic sovereignty in an era of permanent geopolitical instability. By economic sovereignty, we don’t mean autarky. We mean a level of independence – or at least balanced interdependence – that prevents you from being overruled from outside.
The problem is that we spent decades making that harder for ourselves. From the Single European Act in 1986, through Maastricht and then the Stability and Growth Pact, European governments deliberately tied their own hands – limits on borrowing, an independent central bank, competition and state-aid rules that took a good deal of industrial policy off the table.
That could arguably make sense in a world of US-led globalisation, rule of law, technological leadership, and relative peace. It makes much less sense now, in a world of US-China confrontation, weaponised value chain dependency, and security risks.
We need to keep what’s best in the European model – the rule of law, human rights, open trade – while also being able to defend our interests and protect our citizens.
We ran four panels: the international role of the euro, the fiscal cost of sovereignty, the unfinished energy union, and strategic autonomy in technology. In each case, the thing standing in the way was a decision governments haven’t taken yet, and the reason they haven’t taken it is that somebody has to pay. On the grid, nothing gets built at sensible cost until governments settle who covers a line that mostly benefits the country next door. Those are the conversations we spend our time on.
What’s the biggest myth or misconception in macroeconomic policy that you challenge?
(Pausing to think) A very classic one is comparing the budget of a state to the budget of a household, along the idea that you’re not supposed to spend more than you earn. But why compare a state, which is immortal, has macroeconomic impact, can roll over its stock of debt, to a household, which is small, finite, and will eventually not exist? Nobody even applies that logic to a company: we expect firms to borrow on the market in order to invest and grow. It’s a category error.
The honest counterpoint is that government can invest badly, because policymakers’ incentives aren’t aligned with the long term. So constraints serve a purpose. But the answer is better constraints, not less investment, because some things only the state will pay for. Defence and basic research have social returns far larger than any private funder could capture. Grids, rail and first-of-a-kind industrial plants do pay off, but over decades rather than years, and private capital won’t wait that long.
So the useful argument is about the quality of public spending: independent appraisal before you commit, and the willingness to pull the plug on what isn’t working.
China and the US are not being shy about using the full force of the state – legislative, regulatory, financial – to steer their economies where they want them. Europe spent decades being cautious about that and lost much of the know-how for doing it, and we need it back – for our companies, and for the people whose jobs depend on them.
How does P4NE support your work?
On top of supporting several of our workstreams, your grant underpins everything we do as a community: our EMPN conferences exist because of it. A lot of funders only fund research projects and papers. Community-building was genuinely hard to find money for elsewhere, and P4NE understood its value immediately. You were among the first funders to believe in EMPN and enable us to grow a network into a community.
Many funders will only finance something that already exists and has already proven it scales. You take the earlier risk. You fund things that don’t exist yet, and I’ve watched you do it with several other organisations I know. Your events are always a good moment, too: the Partners for a New Economy community is full of people I’m happy to see again.
Ludo in conversation at P4NE’s 2025 annual gathering
What’s the work you’re most excited about right now, and where do you see an opening for change?
There are plenty, but probably the most interesting is our work on electricity grids and interconnectors.
Moving from a handful of large power plants to millions of decentralised renewable sources means building far more grid. Hitting the EU’s 2030 and 2040 targets takes something like €1.4 trillion of grid investment, and neither the money nor the time is there. In Germany, a grid project takes seven to nine years to plan; a solar park takes two.
The second part is connecting countries’ electricity markets. Overall, the gain is positive, which is why you build the line at all. It just isn’t evenly spread, because interconnection converges electricity prices: cheaper in the high-price country, more expensive in the low-price one. Unless governments capture that gap and hand it back, it ends up with electricity generators while consumers in the exporting country pay more.
All of this is playing out right now in the negotiations around the EU grids package in Brussels. We’re working across European capitals on two things: financing the grid as cheaply as possible, and interconnecting countries without pushing up consumer prices.
What gives you hope right now?
I’m probably out of step here. While many people see no reason for hope, I tend to see lines finally moving. Europe spent years stuck in comfortable illusions on energy, defence, trade, offshoring, etc.
The shocks of the last few years have forced the honest questions, and forced us to get our own house in order. There is more room for change now than at any point I’ve worked in Brussels. Whether we use it is on us.
Learn more about EMPN’s work
Website https://empn.eu
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/empn/
Back to Stories