Brussels, 23/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) has hosted a meeting with the Commissioner for the Internal Market and Industry, El¿bieta Bieñkowska. The Polish Commissioner came to present the main points in the European Commission strategy for enhancing competitiveness of European enterprise but left a number of MEPs feeling wary.
During her speech, the Commissioner hammered home the following message: “We do not wish to impose a straitjacket that in the end will constrain and harm European operators more than non-European ones. The solution is to raise our game. We need to provide a supporting framework for our businesses to adapt and grow. We need an open, integrated approach to industry”.
The European Commission strategy focuses on three different areas: firstly, supporting the trend towards bundled provision of goods and services and facilitating firms' integration into global value chains and secondly, fostering the modernisation of EU industry through digitisation, energy efficiency and other new cutting-edge technologies. Finally, providing better access to finance and a business-friendly regulatory environment, particularly through the COSME programme.
This framework locks into the priorities set out by the Juncker Commission, namely the digital single market, Energy Union, the circular economy, Capital Union, the European Fund for Strategic Investments, Better Regulation and the Internal Market Strategy due this autumn (see EUROPE 11246).
The EPP was, overall, in favour of the announcements made by the Commissioner, primarily with regard to the interests of entrepreneurs. Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany) stated: “If you want jobs in Europe you have to see what's important to industry because the European business community has to tackle globalisation”. Édouard Martin (S&D, France), however, said: “We need to revise our social models. We need to provide guarantees to employees and not to work contracts”. David Borrelli (EFDD, Italy) stated, “first of all, we need to improve the use of existing instruments before launching a new strategy”.
The Commissioner said that European industry had to meet several major challenges: the lack of investment in productivity, research and development, the decline of the industrial sector and the sluggishness of economic recovery. She also pointed out that economic activity was still below the 2008 level, contrary to what has happened in the US where this level has been superseded. (Pascal Hansens)