Manufacturers’ Associations of Italy, France, and Germany: EU and states must act fast to strengthen industry

Brussels – The big European industry calls on national and Union institutions to act fast to strengthen the sector by promoting innovation and strategic autonomy.

At the end of the sixth Paris Business Trilateral Forum, the presidents of MEDEF, BDI and Confindustria signed a joint statement urging EU institutions and member states “to act quickly to strengthen Europe’s industrial base, promote innovation, and ensure strategic autonomy.”

European businesses are “urgently” calling on the European Union and its member states to undertake Catch-up Tests: within a year, the results of key EU policies should be systematically compared with those of the United States in critical economic sectors “and, if necessary, adjusted.”

According to entrepreneurs from the three most industrialized countries in the Union, European lawmakers should focus on four key priorities:

1. To increase the competitiveness of the European industry, a technology-neutral approach must be adopted in all initiatives within a year. It is time for the EU to support all low-carbon technologies, including nuclear power, renewables, low-carbon gases, and hydrogen. Harmonized support under the Clean Industrial Deal, EU-ETS, and financing mechanisms will also enable various low-carbon solutions to contribute to Europe’s green transition.
2. All relevant regulations should be revised within a year to reduce bureaucratic and compliance costs. EU member states have introduced significantly more laws than the U.S., further complicating an already fragmented market. These differences are a major cause of the divergence in competitiveness between the EU and the U.S.
3. To accelerate innovation, we need to start by increasing investment in R&S to 3 per cent of GDP within a year. To achieve this goal, member states and EU institutions must be ready to reallocate resources, including funds from the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), to support cutting-edge technological development across the EU.
4. To facilitate European investment, we must start unlocking the €800 billion identified in the Draghi report within a year. The EU and member states need to strengthen the competitiveness of the corporate finance ecosystem through the Banking and Capital Markets Union within a year. Strong public investment is also needed at the national and EU levels. The EU should develop a competitiveness-oriented Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and more efficient financial instruments. In addition, the financing of European public goods should also be pursued in part through EU debt instruments.