Mario Draghi and Patrick Collison join to form Rhine Group think tank  

Group will include 'European leaders from government, academia, and business' and will focus on addressing challenges for the future of Europe

Patrick Collison also co-founded the Arc Institute, which provides funding to scientists to pursue biomedical research. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos

The former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi has joined with Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison to start a new organisation which will be focused on addressing challenges for the future of Europe.

The Rhine Group said the objective of the organisation is to convene “European leaders from government, academia, and business to discuss possible answers to these challenges for the future of Europe”.

“Such discussions will be based on research papers distributed as pre-reads and will follow the Chatham House Rule,” it said in a statement.

Mr Draghi and Mr Collison are listed as co-founders of the Rhine Group, with Luis Garicano set to take the role of executive director.

Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi in 2021. Picture: Alessandra Tarantino/AP

Mr Garicano is a Spanish economist and professor of public policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Between 2019 and 2022 he served as a member of the European Parliament.

Irish entrepreneur Patrick Collison founded payments firm Stripe in 2010 with his brother John.

Mr Draghi is an Italian economist who served as the president of the European Central Bank between 2011 and 2019. He served as prime minister of Italy between 2021 and 2022 after its president asked him to form a technocratic government.

In 2024, at the request of the European Commission, he published The Future of European Competitiveness Report, which laid out a blueprint for the future of Europe’s economy. It set out a series of proposals on energy policy, industrial strategy, defence, digital infrastructure, and capital markets reform.

In its statement, the Rhine Group said that, of the 50 largest technology firms in the world, only four are European.

“In every emerging technology that will shape the coming decades, Europe is weak,” it said. “If stagnation continues, the continent will progressively lose the ability to fund the core obligations of a modern state: Defence, public healthcare, pensions, education, climate investments, and safety nets for those who lose their jobs.”

The statement said the world order has changed with US tariffs being introduced and China becoming a “fiercer competitor”.

“Decline is not inevitable, but it is the direction we are heading unless we take urgent action,” it stated.

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The organisation's membership includes academics and company executives such as Mastercard chief executive Michael Miebach; Klarna chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski; as well as the editor of The Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes.

Its membership also includes Leopold Aschenbrenner, the founder and chief investment officer at the hedge fund Situational Awareness. His fund suffered a significant hit last month as it was forced to liquidate some of its positions to meet margin calls.

In addition to this group, Patrick Collison also co-founded the Arc Institute, which provides funding to scientists to pursue biomedical research. The Collison brothers have also backed the Ireland-based think tank Progress Ireland.

It has been reported that Patrick Collison has donated $7m (€5.99m) to an organisation working to defeat a proposed wealth tax in California which targets people worth more than $1bn.