Wealth & Money Quote by Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Rasmussen’s line is less a pep talk for free markets than a warning shot at Europe’s favorite political reflex: cushioning decline with tariffs, subsidies, and “strategic” carve-outs dressed up as solidarity. The phrasing is surgical. “Stick to” frames openness not as an experiment but as a discipline Europe risks abandoning under pressure. “Competition” is doing double duty here: an economic mechanism, yes, but also a moral posture - a continent proving it can face globalization without hiding behind borders.

The key move is the time horizon. “In the long run” concedes the uncomfortable truth protectionists trade on: you can save jobs tomorrow. Rasmussen’s intent is to delegitimize that bargain by shifting the scoreboard to durability rather than immediacy. “Not save one single job” is deliberately absolutist, designed to puncture the comforting arithmetic of “just until things stabilize.” It implies that protectionism doesn’t preserve work; it preserves institutions and business models that have already lost the race.

Context matters: a post-Cold War European project built on the single market, facing recurring bouts of anxiety - deindustrialization, enlargement, China’s rise, later the financial crisis - where voters demand the state “do something.” Rasmussen, a center-right liberal reformer and Atlanticist, is signaling that Europe’s real competitive advantage is rules-based openness, not national retreat. The subtext is political: if you promise industrial protection as social policy, you’re borrowing time at compound interest, and the bill arrives as stagnation, higher prices, and fewer options when the next shock hits.