EU leaders will call on the European institutions to continue work to strengthen the European economy, including by reducing the “strategic dependencies” that the Covid-19 pandemic and now the economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have highlighted.
Taking forward the Versailles Declaration on the subject adopted a fortnight ago (see EUROPE 12909/1), the European Council will identify four very sensitive sectors of activity: - critical raw materials (stockpiling, better efficiency in the use of resources); - semi-conductors (target: produce 20% of global production in the EU by 2030); - health; - digital; - food, in particular the production of plant proteins).
As the spring meetings of the European Council are traditionally devoted to socio-economic issues, the EU27 will call for a deepening of the internal market, especially in the digital and services sectors, as well as the implementation of the EU’s industrial strategy and the strategy for SMEs. They will argue for greater integration of national ecosystems, a reduction in supply bottlenecks and, at the international level, for maintaining the EU’s ability to influence the development of technical standards.
See the draft conclusions of the European Council: https://aeur.eu/f/vu (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)