EU Industry Ministers agreed, during an informal ‘Competitiveness’ meeting on Tuesday 1 February in Lens, France, on strengthening the EU’s “open strategic autonomy”, both in terms of diversifying the supply of critical metals and other strategic raw materials (nickel, cobalt, lithium, permanent magnets, etc.), and in the use of important projects of common European interest (IPCEI).
“The debates that have taken place today have led us to several conclusions: firstly, that the Member States and the European Commission are now perfectly aligned in working to strengthen this strategic autonomy and that the tools that have been deployed have proved their effectiveness”, said the French Minister Delegate for Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runnacher.
All member countries have called for their extension, their widening and deepening, and consider that this toolbox is necessary”, she continued. Member States want to go “further” to establish fair international competition and “strengthen” Europe’s supplies of critical raw materials. The importance of IPCEIs was again stressed by the ministers in order to catch up and regain market shares.
Ministers supported ongoing and future IPCEI projects on low-carbon hydrogen, electronics and connectivity, the cloud and health. The ‘European Chips Act’, due to be introduced on 8 February (see EUROPE 12880/25), also met with consensus, she said. The ministers also agreed on the use of industrial alliances.
The financial role of the European Recovery and Resilience Plan has been mentioned by many Member States to support reindustrialisation. New European bodies were also highlighted, such as the European Innovation Council or the new Health Emergency preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). “All these tools are now validated and approved by the Member States, but we need to go further, that’s very clear”, she said.
In general terms, the Member States have therefore validated the triptych comprising the diversification of the supply of rare metals and critical materials, recycling and maintenance of critical raw materials entering the European territory, increasing production on European territory (i.e. increasing mining activity on the domestic territory). The French minister stressed the importance of refining technologies.
Real convergence
According to a diplomatic source, during the morning plenary session, there was convergence, but always with nuances. The Nordic states remain more vigilant about the need to keep the European economy “open”. However, the Dutch and Austrian positions in favour of a voluntary industrial policy and empowerment were confirmed again, according to the same source.
There is also a consensus among Member States on the use of IPCEIs. The Nordic countries are said to wanting to use this tool first of all to develop excellence in research and innovation, while other large Member States would like to use it also for the development of production chains.
Questioned at a press conference by EUROPE, Minister Pannier-Runacher guaranteed that this tool would be limited to responding to market “failures”.
Still responding to EUROPE on the perfectibility of the IPCEIs, the French Minister acknowledged that their effectiveness needed to be improved. As IPCEIs have been launched and implemented, the number of projects has grown exponentially, she explained. It was necessary to “change gear” to deal with the files at the European Commission. For her, it is now necessary to “compress instruction times”. Here, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, acknowledged that Competition services of the European Commission needed to be more “reactive”. He added that he wanted to extend IPCEIs to SMEs and start-ups.
The aim of this informal meeting, the French minister told EUROPE in the morning ahead of the meeting, was to make “a diagnosis in a quantified way” on the basis of two issues: essential metals for electric batteries and permanent magnets for marine wind farms, and then to submit a roadmap at a forthcoming formal ‘Competitiveness’ meeting in Brussels.
Imminent and future initiatives
A day before the presentation of a new communication on standardisation, the Commissioner stressed to EU ministers the importance of a European strategy on the international scene in the field of standardisation. For him, it is much more than a technical process, it is a “geopolitical” issue.
Responding to EUROPE during a press conference on the objectives of the strategy, Mr Breton said the idea was to regain influence in international standardisation fora and, to do so, establish effective European governance so that the European Union carries more weight. The actions will be prioritised according to the European priorities, namely the green and digital transition, the Commissioner stressed.
During the plenary exchanges, the Single Market Emergency Instrument (see EUROPE 12866/7) was mentioned several times. That same morning, Luxembourg’s Minister for the Economy, Franz Fayot, stressed the existence of “gaps, loopholes”, as shown by the return of borders that were “no longer known” at the beginning of the pandemic.
In his speech to the ministers behind closed doors, Commissioner Breton emphasised the importance of the EU’s dependency analysis work. In the near future, the Commission is expected to present new work analysing the EU’s dependencies on solar panels, the cyber security sector and video-on-demand platforms, he said.
Chinese coercive actions against Lithuania (see EUROPE 12869/5) were also discussed by the ministers, who expressed their solidarity with Vilnius. Thierry Breton said, during a press conference, that he will be going to Lithuania to take stock of the economic consequences of the Chinese measures. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)