The EU27 ministers responsible for industrial issues agreed on the need to build on the most innovative sectors to support EU regions lagging behind the EU average, at an informal ‘Competitiveness’ meeting on Wednesday 20 July.
“Our presidency priorities do indeed state that we need to have solutions which ensure convergence of regions and an approximation of living standards in the European Union. That is, after all, one of the very aims of the European Union. So, there is a transformation industry. We want to make use of that. So that we can help those regions that are lagging behind in innovation”, said Jozef Síkela, the Czech Minister of Industry and Trade, at a press conference.
In his view, it is necessary to avoid the mistake of the Czech Republic after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “After 1989, the Czech Republic tended to concentrate on low value-added and assembly-line production. And we were excessively dependent on energy and material inputs”, he continued, adding that this situation applied to many regions of the EU.
According to him, and on the basis of what was discussed in the morning plenary and in the various workshops (see EUROPE 12995/17), it is therefore necessary to make smart use of particularly innovative sectors such as zero-emission energy and artificial intelligence. “This development will provide industry in lagging regions a chance to take advantage of research, development and design and also services for customers and in this way, increase value added”.
However, for this to happen, it is necessary, in his view, that services do not suffer from any obstacles in the internal market or that public financial support or industrial alliances are inclusive.
A new industrial geography
The European Commission, represented by Kerstin Jorna, Director General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), agreed. “We need a new industrial geography”, she said, speaking in place of the Commissioner for the Internal Market,Thierry Breton, who was absent and self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.
She cited some examples. In Portugal, regions are developing hydrogen and renewable energy to provide energy to industry across Europe. The northern regions of Sweden specialise in sustainable mining to provide materials for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Czech regions have begun their transition from coal to data mining, she continued.
For Ms Jorna, there are two main conditions for such an orientation to be successful. She first of all joined the Czech Minister on the removal of obstacles in the single market to support innovation, notably through the digitalisation of administrative services. She also stressed the importance of cooperation between the authorities and administrations of the different Member States to ensure the proper functioning of the Internal Market.
“They need to work together, for example, at the moment, and be able to have full transport on solidarity lanes, for example, for the transport of goods, especially grain from Ukraine through the EU to the final destinations”, she explained. Ms Jorna stressed the importance of making efforts across the entire value chain, and not focusing on a specific product, industry or region.
The emergency instrument for the single market, our “lifebelt”
The European Commission is expected to present a new emergency instrument for the single market in September (see EUROPE 12981/17). When asked by EUROPE about the origin of the successive postponements, Ms Jorna explained that the Russian invasion of Ukraine reshuffled the cards and led to the reworking of the instrument. She recalled that this was not a response to a crisis affecting a specific type of product or sector (as in the case of the Semiconductor Regulation), but to respond to the “unknown” at the level of the single market, which greatly increases the work of the European Commission.
And to conclude on a positive note: “I am very confident that we will get a good instrument that will show that the single market, at all times, will be like a lifebelt for all of us”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)