1. The promise: historic investment, big words

NextGenerationEU is the biggest recovery package Europe has ever launched. €800 billion, with €200 billion tagged for digital innovation and AI. The goals are ambitious: resilience, sovereignty, leadership. The kind of promise that should fire up an entire generation of professionals, builders, and reformers.

But on the ground, it’s quiet. No spike in demand. No boom in hiring. No clear doorways opening for the people who were supposed to drive this transformation. The investment is real. But if this is Europe’s big moment—why can’t we see it?

2. The paradox: where the money actually goes

Follow the money and a pattern appears. Accenture took €82 million. Deloitte got €34 million. PwC, EY, McKinsey, Capgemini—they all secured slices. In total, over €586 million of EU resilience funding has gone to global consultancies, many of them with significant American ownership.

Beyond that, billions have gone into public universities, national infrastructure, and legacy institutions. France directed €6.5 billion into higher education and research. Italy gave €24 billion to its national rail operator. According to the European Court of Auditors, most funding across member states was used to stabilise budgets or reinforce existing capacity—not to create new systems, new companies, or new capabilities.

It’s a contradiction: transformation funded through preservation. The money flows, but the direction is opaque. Institutions receive boosts, but the ecosystem remains hard to enter. The signals are there, but they’re not reaching most of us.

3. The invisibility problem

If these investments were landing right, we would feel it. The market would feel it. We’d see AI specialists in demand, freelance engineers overwhelmed, spinouts coming out of research institutions, and entrepreneurial growth across sectors.

Instead, the numbers are flat. Only 13% of European businesses used any AI technology in 2024. The €20 billion AI “gigafactory” project relies on imported chips and external contractors. We don’t see excitement. We don’t see friction. We see a process that looks suspiciously like inertia.

Try using any of the EU’s official job platforms—EPSO and EURES. The user experience is poor. Positions are vague, difficult to filter, and often lack any sense of urgency or ownership. You rarely see any real recruitment presence. It’s a black box.

This, by the way, is a goldmine for any serious recruitment firm. The demand is there. The visibility isn’t. If you’re a recruiter looking to make an impact, here’s your starting point.

4. Who benefits—and who gets shut out

It’s not hard to guess who wins: the large firms with procurement muscle, and the institutions who already know how to play the game. They receive the money, the mandates, and the mandate extensions.

Who gets left behind? The young researcher with a working prototype. The independent strategist. The freelancer who understands the edge of technology. The entrepreneur who sees a future but can’t get past the front desk.

Also underutilised are the senior professionals—executives, program leaders, and tech veterans—now between roles. These are people who’ve built scale, managed risk, navigated complexity. They’re ready to help—but the system makes no room for them. The infrastructure isn’t designed to connect their talent to real opportunities.

What’s invisible here is the potential. The kind of work that doesn’t come with a PowerPoint deck, but could still change the trajectory of an entire region if only brought into view.

5. Where the doors are—so far

In all this noise, a few doors actually do open. They just don’t look like doors. You have to knock hard.

Start with Ignite Sweden. They run direct matchmaking between startups and large organisations. Their public partners include municipalities and public agencies. Reach out to them. Suggest something that helps.

Look at AI Sweden. They’re looking for real contributions in applied projects across sectors. They host pilots, build public datasets, and maintain an open list of AI-driven startups. Start a conversation.

Explore Vinnova. They fund early-stage projects with scaling potential. Their platform is messy, but their calls are real. If you’ve got something built and tested, they might help you push it forward.

These aren’t comfortable pipelines. They require energy. But if you know how to contribute—product, leadership, research, tech—this is where you can show up.

So far, I’ve only been able to identify Swedish actors who are engaging constructively with EU-funded transformation. That’s where I’ve seen some openings.

What’s missing are the European counterparts. Where are the equivalents in Germany, France, Poland, Italy? Where is the continental version of Ignite? Where are the projects worth showing up for?

6. The way forward: make the invisible visible

All across the EU, leaders are calling for structural change. We hear talk of cutting red tape, accelerating digital rollout, building better infrastructure for entrepreneurship and investment. The intent is there. But right now, that ambition isn’t reaching us.

So until it does, the best move is to act where we are. Overwhelm the bottlenecks with talent, with energy, with visible attention. Build what should have been built. Help where help is missing. Bring things into the open. Show where the friction is. And make it harder to ignore the people already moving.

This is my ask: if you know of specific companies, institutions, or projects that are working with EU recovery funds and actually doing something useful—drop them in the comments. Names, links, contacts. Share what’s working.

Let’s build the map together. Because the future won’t be built by institutions alone. It’s built in the friction. By the people who still show up.