Recently, French president Emmanuel Marcon presented a massive investment plan – “France 2030”.

The roadmap sketches out France’s digital and green transformation and is meant to set up the country – as well as Europe – for growth and success ahead of the French EU Council presidency.

When Germany reunified in 1990, productivity in the former East was just 60% of that in the West and people in places such as Leipzig and Dresden were less prosperous than those in Frankfurt or Munich.

Over the last three decades the German Federal Government has worked to close this gap and, though it still exists, prosperity and economic productivity in the former East Germany has now almost caught up with the West.