The German, French and Italian economy ministers, Robert Habeck, Bruno Le Maire and Adolfo Urso, met again on Monday 8 April to discuss competitiveness in the EU. The three ministers believe the emphasis must be on European industry, which has been losing ground in recent years. While they share this view, they do not entirely agree on the methods to be applied.
This applies firstly to European preference, which France is proposing to apply to public procurement. For Bruno Le Maire, more or less 50% of a public procurement contract should be reserved for European production. “There is still no agreement between the three of us, but we want to move forward”, he said.
His German counterpart is rather against the idea of restricting access to public procurement. National preference rules and other protectionist tendencies “destroy the free movement of goods”, according to Robert Habeck. To ensure fair competition between participants in a public procurement contract, he argues in favour of socio-environmental criteria.
The Italian minister, Adolfo Urso, is less categorical on the subject. “We can put in place preferential measures for European public tenders. We are fairly neutral on the instruments to be used”, he said. He added that any measures in this area would have to comply with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The French Ministry of the Economy believes that European preference criterion would be “an obvious way of achieving competitiveness objectives”. However, France remains open to discussions, “as long as this objective is met”, according to a source at the ministry.
“We need to be able to show boldness and originality in our public policies”, insists Bruno Le Maire, who also believes that “Europe needs to show its teeth” in the face of competition from China and the United States.
Simplifying rules
Another area of work explored by the three ministers is the simplification of standards for businesses. Bruno Le Maire believes that the Commission should adopt a proposal for an ‘omnibus’ directive to simplify all existing standards in the different European legislations. In his view, such a text should be presented before any other that affects businesses. Mr Habeck and Mr Urso “have not endorsed the proposal as such, but there is a considerable convergence of views on the need to act”, according to the source at the French Ministry of the Economy.
Mr Le Maire’s other proposals include redefining the size of SMEs and increasing the number of employees from 250 to 500.
The German minister, for his part, put forward another proposal to simplify the administrative rules imposed on businesses: to have civil servants systematically check with businesses the impact of legislation on the ground. “It’s extremely useful, sometimes leading to the abolition of reporting obligations”.
These discussions will in any case be continued by the three ministers at a future meeting in October or November, in Berlin or elsewhere in Germany, announced Mr Habeck. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)