Johanna Lehne, senior policy advisor at E3G, and Luc Triangle, secretary general at IndustriAll, welcomed the update of the EU’s industrial strategy, but pointed out its limitations, during a debate, on Thursday 28 October, in the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry and Research (ITRE) (see EUROPE 12823/12).
For the former, there is a need for more concrete and targeted actions rather than the multiplication of general objectives. Like the US, the focus should be on financial effort and investment rather than regulatory action. Reviewing governance to strengthen transparency by better integrating civil society must also be a priority.
For the trade unionist Luc Triangle, the social and territorial dimension of the strategy should be strengthened and the data collected should be refined (in particular by taking into account the age and level of qualification of workers). The Just Transition Mechanism focuses too much on the mining sector. It should be extended to regions undergoing deindustrialisation, he analysed.
The third speaker, Cesare Pozzi, professor and economist at the University of Foggia, was very critical. In his view, the concepts - particularly of ecosystems - are vague and the ambition is not up to scratch. Responding to MEPs, he said that making massive European investments in semiconductors was not a good decision. The EU should invest in disruptive technologies that are less raw material intensive, he said. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)