BRUSSELS — EU countries shouldn’t be afraid of integrating at different speeds if that’s what it takes to gain crucial leverage on the world stage, Mario Draghi said Monday.

“We must take the steps that are currently possible, with the partners who are actually willing, in the domains where progress can currently be made,” said the former European Central Bank president and ex-prime minister of Italy during a ceremony at the University of Leuven in Belgium, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

“Power requires Europe to move from confederation to federation,” said Draghi, stressing that only in domains where EU countries have pooled their competences has the bloc gained clout on the global stage.

 “Where Europe has federated, [such as] on trade, on competition, on the single market, on monetary policy, we are respected as a power and negotiate as one,” he said, citing trade agreements recently negotiated with India and Latin America.

Draghi’s call comes as Europe struggles to keep pace with the U.S. and China, and is facing Russian aggression in Ukraine plus a transatlantic ally that no longer acknowledges the benefits of its historic European ties.

“This is a future in which Europe risks becoming subordinated, divided and de-industrialized at once, and a Europe that cannot defend its interests will not preserve its values for longer,” Draghi warned.

In the face of those challenges, areas of weakness are those where EU capitals continue to maintain a grip, such as defense, industrial policy or foreign affairs, Draghi said. In these, he added, “we are treated as a loose assembly of middle-sized states to be divided and dealt with accordingly.”

The former top official praised the bloc’s recent stance on Greenland, where it decided to resist rather than accommodate threats coming from the U.S. “By standing together in the face of direct threat, Europeans discovered the solidarity that had previously seemed out of reach,” he said. 

Draghi will take part in an informal gathering of European leaders next week aimed at discussing the direction for the bloc’s competitiveness, together with another former Italian prime minister, Enrico Letta.

Both have laid out their economic visions in reports that form the building blocks of President Ursula von der Leyen’s second term atop the European Commission.