The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, calls for the creation of a European industrial recovery fund to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking at a video conference organised by the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) on Thursday 2 April, he also encouraged "certain" countries to enter, if necessary, into the capital of "certain" companies to support them.
This is the first time that the IMCO Committee has met since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, which has infected more than one million people worldwide. A handful of MEPs were physically present while another handful spoke via video conference. An exceptional format that had some imperfections, since the transmission could not be established with all the MEPs announced. Thierry Breton, for his part, used video-conferencing, without specifying - in response to a question from Andreas Schwab (EPP, Germany) - where he was.
The discussion focused on the measures activated since the beginning of the crisis to protect the internal market and how this market could contribute to solving the problem.
"We've gone a bit far in globalisation"
For the Internal Market Commissioner, this crisis will prompt Europe "to rethink its global value chains, perhaps relocating some critical industries to Europe, but also the place of the internal market, which is more essential than ever in the ecosystems".
Asked by MEP Anne-Sophie Pelletier (GUE-NGL, France) about the scope of such a declaration, he again acknowledged that globalisation had gone a bit far in some areas, including pharmaceuticals. He foreshadows a "before and after crisis" with regard to globalisation. And to clarify his point immediately: this does not mean that everything will be brought back to Europe, but that there will be a "revisiting" of the way we have created our supply chains globally and that there will probably be local productions - but not all of them - closer to customers.
Call for a European industrial recovery fund
In his speech, the Frenchman called on all Member States to prepare an industrial recovery plan to help their companies cope with the crisis and prepare for the "post-crisis" period. "We must prevent predators from taking over companies, we must prevent companies from being sold at bargain prices", he said, going so far as to encourage States to consider taking equity stakes in companies to protect them or allow them to continue operating.
To illustrate his point, he used the example of Germany, which has adopted a €256 billion plan. "All countries should do the same thing quickly. At EU level, we are talking about €1.6 trillion for what is needed to accompany this very important period".
Anticipating questions about how such a European recovery fund would be financed, he warned that the European Commission would have to take a more proactive approach: "Before we talk about tools, let's talk about programmes". In his view, it is important to have a bottom-up approach rather than the opposite, as was the case with the controversial idea of the Coronabonds. "Let's start with the companies to find out how much to finance", he said in English, after stating that he would answer all questions in English, despite the translation service provided. He added, again with reference to the debate on budgetary responses to the crisis, that everyone should reach into their own pocket to help businesses and SMEs, "including the Netherlands, including the Germans".
Enhanced coordination over the last three weeks
Thierry Breton also commented on the export restrictions put in place by some Member States to ensure that their resources do not escape them. The Commissioner stated that these situations had been resolved (in Germany) or were in the process of being resolved (in Romania and Slovakia), remaining more evasive in the case of Poland.
He also referred to the Commission's initiative to model, with the help of mobile telecommunications data, the spread of the virus. He said this was to anticipate pandemic peaks and equipment needs by using non-personal, aggregated and anonymised data. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)