Brussels, 23/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - European industry ministers will seek agreement at the Italian Presidency's first formal Competitiveness Council meeting on Thursday 25 September on guidance for systematically integrating matters related to industrial competiveness into the various EU policies - environment, climate, energy, trade, competition, state aid and regional policy - with a view to strengthening Europe's industrial base. This process is known as mainstreaming.
To structure the debate, which will be chaired by Italian Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi and which will lead to the adoption of Council conclusions, the Italian Presidency will ask delegations to discuss three key points: - general issues currently affecting the competitiveness of European industry and possible measures to increase the level of industrialisation across the EU; - ways of ensuring the effective mainstreaming of all EU policies having an impact on industrial competitiveness; - and improvement of the governance mechanisms for managing and monitoring structural reforms in the competitiveness and real economy area.
The recent EU passion for the “integrated approach” derives from the latest strategy presented by the Commission at the start of the year to strengthen the EU's industrial base, pompously called the “industrial renaissance” strategy (see EUROPE 11002). The goal of the said strategy is to halt the (relative) industrial decline of the EU and increase the manufacturing sector's contribution to EU GDP to 20% by 2020. In addition to mainstreaming, the European Commission calls on the member states to: - maximise the potential of the internal market; - implement the instruments of regional development with national and EU instruments in support of innovation, skills and entrepreneurship; - encourage investment and facilitate businesses' access to critical inputs, such as energy and raw materials, at affordable prices; - facilitate the integration of EU firms in global markets.
Linking in with this debate, the Commission will present the last two reports, published on 11 September, on the competitiveness of the EU and its member states, calling for member states to take firm measures to address well-known ills: falling investment, limited access to finance, inefficient public administrations, difficulty of access to some non-EU markets, not enough innovation and the high prices of energy and raw materials (see EUROPE 11153).
The Council will also hold a policy debate on the forthcoming mid-term review of the EUROPE 2020 strategy to discuss what more this strategy can do to ensure economic growth. The Italian Presidency believes that the relaunch of the strategy will help attain two major goals that are crucial to the economic and competitiveness agenda: - better alignment of the real and financial economies; - and better integration of single market and industrial competitiveness priorities within the European semester, the main framework structuring the governance process for economic policy coordination. (EH)