Europe Does Not Lack Vision. Europe Lacks Organisations Capable of Turning Vision into Reality

There is no possibility of postponing the opening of a concert because another committee needs to review the technical documentation. There is no room for endless discussions about responsibility when a stage must be ready, the power supply connected, the equipment installed and hundreds of people coordinated.

The audience does not care how many meetings we have attended, how impressive our organisational charts look or how detailed our planning documents are. They experience the result.

I have worked as a production manager, site manager, technical coordinator, scenographer and project manager, often in environments where many independent organisations, suppliers and specialists must operate as one functioning system. These roles have taken me into the worlds of international touring productions, large music festivals, sporting events, film sets and complex temporary installations.

Over time, I have come to understand that successful execution is rarely about one brilliant individual. It is about creating the conditions in which many different people can contribute their expertise towards a common objective.

And perhaps most importantly, it is about understanding the entire system rather than becoming trapped inside one part of it.

That experience shapes how I look at Europe today.

When Something Goes Wrong, Someone Must Be Able to Solve It

In a complex live production, unexpected problems are inevitable. Equipment fails. Deliveries are delayed. Weather conditions change. Technical requirements conflict with physical limitations. A contractor may arrive late, a planned solution may prove impossible or several activities may suddenly need the same limited space.

The difference between a successful production and a failed one is not whether problems occur. It is how quickly the organisation can recognise, understand and resolve them.

I have frequently found myself operating between departments, disciplines and individuals who each understand their own responsibilities but do not necessarily see how their decisions affect everyone else.

My role has often been to connect those perspectives, identify the actual obstacle and develop a practical solution.

Sometimes the answer is technical. Sometimes it is logistical. Sometimes it requires changing the original design. And sometimes it simply means getting the right people into the same conversation.

What rarely helps is adding another administrative layer between the problem and the person who can solve it.

This is why I find the organisational development of companies such as SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla so interesting. Not because I believe private corporations should govern our societies, but because their working methods demonstrate the value of integrated thinking, direct communication and continuous improvement.

They raise an uncomfortable question: why do so many public organisations still struggle with principles that are considered essential in successful operational environments?

Europe Has Become Extremely Good at Managing Processes

Europe possesses some of the world's most advanced industrial, scientific and technical capabilities. We have universities, research institutions, engineers, designers, manufacturers and entrepreneurs capable of competing internationally.

Yet the distance between an idea and its implementation can be enormous.

An innovative company develops a promising technology but struggles to navigate national regulations and administrative requirements. A city identifies the need for new infrastructure, yet the project spends years moving through planning, consultation, approval and procurement. A public authority recognises that a digital service needs improvement, but the organisation attempts to modernise the technology without reconsidering the processes behind it.

I recognise this problem from project environments.

When responsibilities become too fragmented, everyone can be doing their assigned job correctly while the overall project still moves in the wrong direction.

A department protects its budget. Another follows its procedures. A third waits for documentation. A fourth cannot proceed until a decision has been formally approved.

From an administrative perspective, everything may appear perfectly reasonable.

From an operational perspective, nothing is happening.

And that is the distinction Europe urgently needs to understand.

A project is not successful because every department has completed its paperwork. It is successful when the intended result actually works.

The Difference Between Planning and Understanding

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that a plan is not the same as an understanding of how a system works.

You can produce an extraordinary technical drawing, a detailed project schedule and a comprehensive budget without fully understanding how the various components will interact under real conditions.

In my work, I have frequently used visualisation and three-dimensional concepts to explain complex ideas before construction begins. Not because images are more impressive than written documents, but because they help different people develop a shared understanding of what must be achieved.

An engineer may see technical limitations. A production manager sees dependencies. A financial manager sees costs. A contractor sees practical construction challenges. A creative director sees the intended experience.

All of these perspectives are valuable. But they must eventually become one coherent reality.

That process requires someone to understand how the pieces fit together.

I have learned to work backwards from the finished result. What should the audience, client or user experience? What must physically exist for that to happen? Which systems depend on each other? What can be simplified? What needs to be built first? Which decisions will become expensive if they are postponed?

These questions are just as relevant to a railway station, a hospital or a new industrial facility as they are to a concert or festival.

The scale is different. The regulations are different. The risks are different.

But the fundamental challenge remains the same: turning an idea into a functioning system.

What SpaceX Understands About Execution

Elon Musk's companies have attracted enormous attention because of their technological ambitions. Reusable rockets, satellite communications, electric vehicles, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and new manufacturing methods have changed expectations about what private companies can accomplish.

But I am particularly interested in the organisation behind the technology.

SpaceX has developed an approach in which engineering, manufacturing, testing and operational feedback are closely connected. The objective is not simply to produce detailed plans, but to build, test, identify problems and improve the next version.

The company's frequently described five-step approach begins by questioning requirements, removing unnecessary elements and simplifying what remains. Only then does it focus on accelerating and automating the process.

That sequence makes sense to anyone who has spent years solving practical problems.

I have seen organisations spend considerable time improving procedures that should never have existed in the first place. I have watched technically impressive solutions become unnecessarily complicated because nobody questioned their underlying assumptions.

The most effective solution is not always the most sophisticated. Sometimes it is the one that removes the problem entirely.

Of course, SpaceX also experiences failures, technical setbacks, regulatory challenges and significant financial risks. Its development model cannot be transferred directly into public administration. The safety requirements for infrastructure serving millions of people must be fundamentally different from those governing an experimental prototype.

But the organisational lesson remains valuable.

Before we make a process faster, we should ask whether the process needs to exist at all.

Europe: 27 Countries, Thousands of Boundaries

Having spent much of my professional life in Sweden and more recently living and developing projects in Bulgaria, I have experienced different administrative cultures within Europe.

The differences are sometimes considerable. What is straightforward in one country may be complicated in another. A process that requires extensive formal documentation in one environment may operate through different structures and expectations somewhere else.

Each system has its own historical, legal and cultural explanations. Yet for someone trying to develop an international project, the practical result can be fragmentation.

Europe describes itself as a single market, but entrepreneurs and project developers still face different national procedures, regulatory interpretations and administrative systems.

The European Commission has acknowledged these obstacles in its Startup and Scaleup Strategy, while Mario Draghi's report on European competitiveness identified fragmentation and slow innovation as major challenges.

The problem is not that Europe lacks ambitious strategies.

The problem is the distance between adopting a strategy and making it work in everyday reality.

Working across different countries has convinced me that we need more people and organisations capable of connecting systems rather than simply administering their individual parts.

We need a Europe that understands international cooperation not only as an agreement between institutions, but as something that must function for the people trying to build, create and operate across borders.

Why Public Organisations Move So Slowly

I do not believe that most public officials lack commitment or competence. Many work extremely hard within systems they did not design and have limited power to change.

The problem is often structural.

In a live production, time is unavoidable. If something needs to be ready at 18:00, the entire organisation must work towards that deadline. Decisions have immediate consequences, and the people involved can usually see how their work contributes to the result.

In public administration, the consequences of delay are often distributed across society.

A postponed infrastructure project may affect thousands of citizens, but no individual department necessarily experiences the full cost. A delayed permit may prevent a company from expanding, but the administrative system may simply record that the case is still being processed.

An incorrect decision can produce immediate criticism. Delaying a decision may appear safer.

Over time, this creates an organisational culture in which following the process can become more important than achieving the result.

We should not confuse this observation with an argument against democratic accountability, environmental protection or legal rights. These are essential safeguards.

But safeguards should protect people, not become excuses for maintaining unnecessarily complicated organisations.

We need to distinguish between procedures that genuinely create public value and procedures that survive primarily because nobody has the authority or incentive to change them.

Europe Needs People Who Can See the Whole Picture

One thing I have noticed throughout my career is that complex projects are rarely limited by a complete absence of expertise.

There are usually plenty of specialists.

What can be missing is the ability to connect their knowledge into a functioning whole.

A structural engineer understands the building. An electrician understands the power supply. A logistics coordinator understands deliveries. A designer understands the intended environment. A financial manager understands the budget.

But who understands how all of these elements affect one another?

Who recognises that a small design decision may create a major logistical problem? Who notices that a technically correct solution will become impossible to maintain? Who can identify which problems genuinely require escalation and which can be solved immediately?

That is the kind of competence I have spent much of my professional life developing.

It does not always fit neatly into a traditional job description. It is a combination of technical understanding, practical experience, creativity, communication and systems thinking.

I believe Europe dramatically undervalues this kind of cross-disciplinary capability, particularly in public-sector project development.

We often build organisations around specialised functions and then expect coordination to emerge through meetings and reporting structures.

But coordination is not something that automatically happens because a project has a steering committee.

It is a competence in its own right.

From Political Promises to Operational Responsibility

Political leaders must define objectives, priorities and budgets. Democratic institutions must ensure legitimacy, transparency and accountability.

But once a major project has been approved, its implementation should be led by people and organisations with the necessary professional competence and clearly defined authority.

One of the lessons from major productions is that decisions must be made at the appropriate operational level. Not every technical adjustment should require approval from the person at the top of the organisation.

A project manager who is responsible for delivering a result but lacks the authority to resolve everyday obstacles is not truly managing the project.

The same principle applies to public infrastructure.

Europe could benefit from permanent, cross-functional delivery organisations that combine engineering, legal expertise, finance, procurement, environmental assessment, design and practical construction knowledge from the beginning.

Their responsibility would not be to bypass democratic decisions or regulations. It would be to make sure approved projects are delivered efficiently within those boundaries.

We should also measure outcomes more seriously.

How long did the project take? What did it cost? Does the completed facility work as intended? Can it be maintained? What did we learn? What should be done differently next time?

These questions should carry more weight than the number of meetings held or reports produced.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Throughout my career, I have learned that delays are rarely neutral.

A late technical decision may require an entire production schedule to be reorganised. One missing component can prevent several teams from working. A problem ignored during planning can become extremely expensive once construction begins.

The same is true on a societal scale.

A delayed railway means years of lost transport capacity. A postponed energy project can contribute to higher costs and missed investment opportunities. Housing that is not built affects families, workers and the development of entire cities.

Yet the cost of delay is rarely as visible as the cost of a failed project.

This needs to change.

Europe should start measuring not only the financial consequences of decisions, but also the opportunities lost through unnecessary inaction.

Time is a resource. And once it has been lost, it cannot be recovered.

We Need a Culture That Builds

I have never believed that an idea becomes valuable simply because it is original. Its value emerges when someone develops it into something meaningful and useful.

A concept needs structure. A vision needs practical understanding. Creativity needs the ability to confront reality.

But execution does not mean blindly following the original plan. It means understanding the objective well enough to adapt when circumstances change.

Some of the most effective solutions I have encountered were not part of the initial plan. They emerged because experienced people understood the situation, questioned assumptions and found a better way forward.

That is the culture I would like to see Europe develop.

A culture in which practical problem-solving is respected. Where professionals are trusted to make decisions within clear responsibilities. Where experimentation is possible under appropriate safeguards. Where failure can produce knowledge rather than automatically becoming a political scandal.

And where the people responsible for creating something are involved from the beginning, not invited only after most important decisions have already been made.

Europe's Greatest Innovation May Be Organisational

After decades of working between people, technology, logistics, creativity and physical environments, I have become increasingly convinced that the greatest limitation in many complex projects is not technology.

It is organisation.

We frequently have everything we need to achieve something: the knowledge, the resources, the equipment and the people. Yet we struggle because those elements are separated by boundaries, procedures and decisions that prevent them from operating as one system.

Europe faces the same challenge on a much larger scale.

We do not need to abandon our democratic principles, social protections or environmental responsibilities. These are among Europe's greatest strengths.

But we urgently need to develop organisations that can combine those values with the ability to act.

We need fewer unnecessary barriers between ideas and execution. We need better connections between specialists. We need leaders who understand both vision and practical reality. And we need public institutions capable of learning and improving rather than simply repeating established procedures.

I have spent much of my life helping transform ideas into experiences, environments and functioning systems. I know that the distance between a vision and reality can be enormous. But I also know that it can be reduced when people understand the objective, trust one another's expertise and take responsibility for the whole.

That is the lesson I believe Europe needs to learn.

We have the people. We have the knowledge. We have the technology. We have the resources. What we must develop is the ability to make everything work together.

Europe does not lack vision.

It lacks enough organisations designed to turn vision into reality.

And perhaps the most important innovation of our time will not be another technological breakthrough.

Perhaps it will be learning how to build the future together — rather than spending another generation discussing how it should be built.