International Conference 9-10 September 2019

Which EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy of the 21st Century?
The European Union’s technological and environmental dilemmas in the light of theexperiences of the US, China, Japan and the emerging economies

Venue: Economic and Social Committee and Saint Louis University, Brussels
Registration at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/which-eu-industrial-policy-in-the-multipolar-economy-of-the-21stcentury-tickets-64226109021

Since the 2010s, the concept of industrial policy “ceased to be taboo” and came back at the forefront of the European
policy debate (Monti, 2010). In his 2017 State of the Union address, President Juncker advocated a “new Industrial
Policy Strategy for the UE that will allow our industries to stay or become the world leader in innovation, digitisationand decarbonisation” (Juncker, 2017). The terminology used on that occasion contrasts with that of the previous twodecades.
After the Airbus and Ariane successes of the 1970s and 1980s, the failure of the flagship technological projects of the1990s such as the EU High-Definition TV standard, combined with the completion of the Single Market, lead the EUto abandon for a time the idea of promoting a common vertical industrial policy (Cohen, 2000; Gillingham, 2003;Warzoulet, 2017). Over that period, the powerful EU competition policy also limited state intervention in support ofspecific industries or enterprises. Within EU institutions, influent commissioners such as Leon Brittan, reflecting theirnational business constituencies, acted in favour of a minimalist economic role for the state.
At the turn of the millennium, the EU faced, on the one hand, a rising technological gap with the US that turned into aknowledge intensive economy with a wave of innovations in ICT, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, nurtured by stateintervention in the defence industries and their dual technologies; and, on the other hand, the rise of emerging economies,
notably in East Asia, in mature and even advanced industries. These developments threatened the EU position in theinternational division of labour and in the global value chain, as clearly identified in various studies such as the “Agendafor a Growing Europe” (Sapir et al, 2003).
The EU institutions’ response was to adopt the Lisbon Strategy in order to transform the EU into a “knowledge-basedsociety” and into “the most competitive economy of the world by 2010” (European Council, 2000). This ten-year’s
wide-scope strategy consisted in a horizontal industrial policy that aimed at boosting the level of competitiveness of theEU economy by increasing R&D spending and reforming the labour market to increase flexibility and the level
qualification for EU workers. With too many objectives, no clear binding targets and a loose monitoring mechanism(the Open Method of Coordination), the Lisbon Strategy has been widely considered by various experts and stakeholders
as a failure (Ardy, 2011; Sapir, 2007). Still, at the end of the 2000s, the EU adopted a similar strategy for the next
decade, the “Europe 2020” strategy, with mixed results since the EU has experienced only a modest rise of R&D
spending and is increasingly dependent on the US ICT GAFAs. The crises of 2008 and 2010 equally revealed a risingtechnological divide between the most technologically advanced EU member states from the Northwest of the EU andthe Mediterranean and Eastern Member States that now lag behind the advanced Asian emerging economies.
In the 2000s, it also became increasingly clear that the EU was the only large economy where competition policy
prevailed over industrial policy. During the G.W. Bush administration, the US adopted a more lenient Schumpeterian
approach toward monopoly in high tech industries, notably in the ICT sectors (Defraigne, 2017). Emerging economies
like China, Russia or South Korea were pursuing vertical industrial policies to promote their national champions anddevelop their own technological standards in order to reduce their dependency on Western technology (Chaponnière,2014; Defraigne, 2016; Kroeber, 2016). The crisis of 2008 with the slowdown of trade and the rise in protectionism
accelerated this trend. With the adoption of a neo-mercantilist trade policy to contain China’s commercial andtechnological rise, the Trump administration is using military expenditures, tax breaks and subsidies to foster high tech
manufacturing and services on the US territory. The confrontation of the US and China strategic trade and industrial
policies reveals the absence of a coherent response from the EU at the supranational level. Juncker’s Investment Planfor Europe and Emmanuel Macron´s recent proposals cannot hide the fact that Germany and the most technologicallyadvanced Member States do not consider an EU-level industrial policy as desirable or as a priority compared to theirnational economic development plans.
In this new international context in which the EU is facing mounting challenges, rebuilding a EU industrial policy
emerges as a key condition to shape the future role of the EU in the international division of labour of the digitalized
global economy, for the global environmental sustainability and for the stability of the world trading system. Otherwise,
the EU could be in a position where it would become a standard taker rather than a standard maker in key newtechnologies, as well as in the fight against climate change. It might also mean that the Member States of the EU
economic periphery from the South and the East could find themselves in an increasingly difficult position vis-à-vis
upgrading emerging economies. The rising technological divide between the centre and the periphery of the EU could
also become a source of social and political instability capable of weakening its economic integration and even of
jeopardizing the entire European integration project. At the same time, the adoption of strategic trade and industrial
policies by the EU and other major economies is likely to weaken multilateralism and increase protectionism. This could
strengthen the perception of trade relations as a zero-sum game among the governments of competing global powers
with the same disastrous consequences that the world experienced before the two world conflicts of the twentiethcentury.

The European Union thus faces the following dilemma: is it possible to develop a European industrial policy
capable of preserving the European position in the global division of labour while reducing its technologicaldivide and pursuing its environmental objectives but without strengthening the mounting protectionism that has
characterized the world economy over the recent years?

Against this background, the purpose of the conference is to address the following research questions:•Looking back at the historical roots and structural long-term causes, how can one explain the absence of a strong
industrial policy and EU level? What are the tensions between the Member States and the EU institutions
regarding industrial and competition policies? What are the conditions for a EU industrial policy to emerge?

•Can the EU keep its position in the international division of labour and in the global value chain while othermajor partners are pursuing strategic trade and industrial policies to maintain their dominant position (the US)or to move up the value chain (China and some other emerging economies)? Would sketching a EU industrial
policy agenda along those same lines be desirable or dangerous?

•What lessons can be learned from the experience of other large economies in terms of vertical and horizontal
industrial policy (US, Japan, BRICS), and can they be of relevance to the EU?

Provisional Programme
Day 1. Monday, 9 September 2019
Venue : EESC, Rue Van Maerlant 2, Brussels
8.30-9.00 Registration and Welcome Coffee
9.00-9.15 Opening remarks Prof. Edoardo Traversa (UCLouvain)
9.15-10.30 Panel 1: The evolution of EU industrial policy instruments in history
Chair: Prof. Edoardo Traversa (UCLouvain)
Prof. Eric Bussière (European University Institute, Sorbonne University)
Prof. Franco Mosconi (University of Parma)
10.30-11.00 Coffee Break
11.00-12.30 Panel 2: National industrial strategies and EU industrial policy
Chair: Prof. Eric Bussière (European University Institute, Sorbonne University)
Dr. Vera Scepanovic (University of Leiden)
Dr. Christakis Georgiou (University of Geneva)
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.45 Panel 3: EU Industrial policies in perspective: A comparative analysis with Japan, China, South
Korea and the USA
Chair: Dr. Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez (MPIeR)
Prof. Sébastien Jean (CEPII Director)
Prof. Sébastien Lechevalier (EHESS)
Prof. Jean-Christophe Defraigne (UCLouvain Saint Louis)Prof. Jee-Hoon Ki (EHESS)
15.45-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-17.30 Panel 4: Sectoral EU industrial policies: Basic industries, defence and automotive industriesChair: Prof. Jean-Christophe Defraigne (UCLouvain Saint Louis)
Dr. Samuel Klebaner (University of Bordeaux) and Dr. Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez (MPIeR)
Enrico Gibellieri (CCMI-EESC) and Dimitri Zurstrassen (UCLouvain)
Alain De Neve (Royal Higher Institute for Defence)

Day 2. Tuesday, 10 September 2019
Venue : UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles, 43 Bd du Jardin Botanique, 1000 Brussels
8.45-9.00 Registration and Welcome Coffee
9.00-9.15 Keynote speech: Innovation and industrial policy Dr. Fredrik Erixon (Director ECIPE)
9.15-10.30 Panel 5. EU Competition and Industrial Policy: Framing the interplay
Chair: Dr. Damien Gerard (UCLouvain and College of Europe)
Prof. Angela Wigger (Radboud University)
Prof. Alexandre de Streel (University of Namur)
10.30-10.50 Coffee Break
10.50-12.30 Panel 5 (con’t). EU Competition and Industrial Policy: Tensions and convergences
Carles Esteva-Mosso (European Commission, DG COMP)
Prof. Leigh Hancher (Tilburg University and European University Institute)Prof. Achim Wambach (President, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research andchairman of the German Monopolies Commission)
Prof. David Spector (Paris School of Economics)
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00- 15.30 Future challenges of EU industrial policy: innovation, digitalization &sustainability
Chair : Dimitri Zurstrassen (UCLouvain)
Patricia Nouveau (EPHEC, UCLouvain)
Pedro Ortún Silván (Former Director, European Commission)
Prof. Sandrine Labory (University of Ferrara)
15.30-15.50 Coffee Break
15.50-17.00 Roundtable: Which instruments for which EU industrial policy?
Chair: Prof. Jan Wouters (CGGS KU Leuven)
Luis Colunga (Deputy General Secretary, IndustriAll Europe)
Riccardo Perissich (former Director General, European Commission)
Alexandre Affre (Director, BusinessEurope)