Debate: Implementation of the Updated New Industrial Strategy for Europe: aligning spending to policy
Date: THURSDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2022
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

Enhancing resilience, accelerating green and digital transitions and strengthening Europe’s open strategic autonomy are our key pillars. In the current era of perma—crisis with the pandemic, the effects of climate change, and, of course, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we can say that these priorities are as valid as ever. It is why, since the May 2021 update of the industrial strategy, our toolbox has grown and our efforts accelerated. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and current energy crisis accentuate the urgency to tackle Europe’s strategic dependencies, phase out dependency on Russian fossil fuels and gas, and accelerate our clean energy transition. As you know, the Commission has proposed its latest package of emergency measures, including to support all final energy customers to counter the economic fallout on our industries, SMEs and our citizens. In parallel, we are accelerating the preparation of the European solar industry alliance announced in the EU solar strategy, which will boost domestic capacity and contribute to the faster deployment of clean energy technologies. This is just one example of the several industrial alliances we set in place in strategic sectors such as raw materials, batteries, hydrogen, semiconductors, and zero—emission aviation to mobilise actors along the value chain. Such alliances help identify regulatory bottlenecks, mobilise investments, create synergies and build project pipelines. Here we have achieved an important progress with concrete results already. In the field of batteries, for example, with 70 major projects, including 20 gigafactories, and in recent years, an investment effort at least three times greater than that of China. In hydrogen too, with 750 projects to be deployed by 2030. In that respect, important projects of European interest in the areas of batteries, micro—electronics and most recently hydrogen are helping to deliver on breakthrough innovation, projecting Europe on the green and digital technologies of the future. The latest geopolitical developments have shown that there cannot be a successful green or digital transition without strengthening the resilience of our strategic supply chains. We propose new tools, such as the foreign subsidies instrument to defend a level playing field for our companies. And we are strengthening our trade defence instruments to respond to dumping and unfair competition by third countries and focused on key supply chains too. This includes critical raw materials whose supply we depend on to manufacture the technologies that enable our green and digital transition. Our needs for lithium and rare earths are growing continuously alongside our demand for batteries or wind turbines, while our supplies are so heavily concentrated in a handful of countries. We cannot afford this situation on things we so desperately need. Our partners have understood it and are stepping up their game. We are not standing still. Our action plan in place since 2020 is bringing already tangible results. We identified strategic partnerships with our partner, Canada. We identified a pipeline of projects on rare earths and other critical raw materials with our newly created industrial alliance on raw materials. But in light of the new context, and as announced by the President yesterday, we will step up ongoing policies through a mix of actions, including a legislative proposal on critical raw materials. Besides raw materials, the Commission put a strong focus on semiconductors. They are central to the modern digital economy. Without semiconductors, there is no digital or green transition. Over decades, Europe has under-invested in this strategic sector and become extremely dependent on other world regions. At the same time, Europe’s demand for chips is expected to double within the next decade. To overcome this extreme dependency and react to the current semiconductor shortage, the Commission proposed the Chips Act package, which, building on EU strengths, sets out a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the EU security of supply and technological leadership. Honourable Members, I cannot conclude this brief overview of our industrial strategy without mentioning the single market. It is Europe’s most valuable economic asset. The pandemic has shown that when the single market does not work, everyone pays the price – consumers, industrial services, large companies, but also the many SMEs in the supply chain. That is why the Commission continues to work to unlock the full potential of the single market, remove existing barriers and increase its resilience, and why in the coming days the College will propose to put in place a structural solution to enhance crisis preparedness and act decisively in a future crisis. The single market emergency instrument will equip the EU with a toolbox allowing for a rapid and effective response to any future crisis that threatens to hamper the functioning of the single market. Honourable Members, the challenges to our industry are unique. As a co—legislator, you have a leading role in how we tackle them on all the files I’ve mentioned. But in parallel, we remain fully committed to have you on board in our co-creation, and, I will say, co-implementation method. We will stand ready to report on progress based on key performance indicators on all the areas of our industrial strategy, including transition pathways.