On Thursday 19 December, the European Commission announced that it would be launching its “strategic dialogue” on the future of the automotive industry in January.
Its aim is to come up with proposals for measures to support the sector and make it more competitive. To achieve this, regular meetings are due to be held after the launch, bringing together all the players in the industry: manufacturers, equipment suppliers and trade unions.
The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, intends to become personally involved in this work.
There are multiple areas of work: - digitalisation and autonomous vehicles; - decarbonisation of the sector and technological neutrality; - simplification of rules; - strengthening demand and financial resources for the sector.
The Commission is therefore reaching out to the growing number of countries asking it to take action to support the sector (see EUROPE 13534/3, 13533/20). Among other things, they are calling for the principle of technological neutrality to be adopted in order to support the production of hydrogen and biofuel vehicles.
The demands also include the abolition of penalties for car manufacturers that fail to meet the CO2 emission reduction targets from 2025, as called for by the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. “It makes no sense to impose additional penalties [on the automotive industry] because of results not achieved next year”, he said on his arrival at the European Council on 19 December.
Petr Fiala, the Czech Prime Minister, welcomed the fact that “Germany is joining the movement”. He presented his proposal for fines to the President of the European Commission. “We should talk about the automotive industry at the next European Council, which will take place in March”, he said.
Steel. In addition to the automotive sector, Olaf Scholz also called for action on European steel.
This sector is suffering from falling demand in Europe and Chinese overcapacity in the market. While the European Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, has drawn up an action plan for steel (see EUROPE 13522/2), Mr Scholz has called for joint action to help the steel industry.
He also called for the organisation of “a major conference on steel, at which these issues would be addressed and where we would act together”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal with the editorial staff)