The subject was not officially on the agenda, but the EU27 Ministers for Competitiveness and Industry, meeting in Brussels on Thursday 26 February, could not resist expressing their views on the forthcoming Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), scheduled, at this stage, for 4 March.
Unsurprisingly, a number of ministers took the opportunity to reiterate their ‘red lines’, such as the German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Katherina Reiche, who insisted that the Commission must propose real improvements for European businesses and carry out genuine simplification.
The IAA is “a set of rules that the EU wishes to implement to speed up European purchasing. The problem is that this regulation is the 50th to be adopted, and that the Accelerator Act alone is accompanied by 30 delegated acts”, she pointed out on arriving in Brussels. “We need more freedom, more flexibility and fewer rules from Brussels”, she said.
While the principle of the IAA is to reserve European public funds exclusively for European companies in key strategic sectors, the German minister also felt that “we cannot invite partners such as Canada and India to trade with us and, at the same time, demand that we only buy European products. We need ‘Made with Europe’, not just ‘Made in Europe’”.
Ebba Busch, Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Industry, sees the various postponements in the presentation of the IAA “as a positive sign” of an “awareness of the real impact that a preference for European products or ‘Made in Europe’ could have on the competitiveness of the European Union”.
As a “representative of the Swedish government, I can say that the fundamental problem lies in excessive regulation, which has led to a multitude of incoherent measures. Things are moving too slowly and the price of electricity is both too volatile and, on average, too high. Favouring European purchases will perhaps only alleviate certain symptoms, without curing the illness at source, the original illness that we are seeing”.
“What I hope (...), [is that] we will have a smaller and more precise scope for what could be presented next week. It would be a good thing if we could then move away from speculation, but beware: once again, this is not the main solution to Europe’s problem”.
“We need to be very careful about European preference, because the wrong approach could damage the EU. We fully understand that certain areas are of key strategic importance for the direction of Europe, but we need to be careful”, also commented the Irish Minister for Enterprise, Peter Burke.
For his part, Sébastien Martin, the French Ministerial Delegate for Industry, urged the Commission not to delay the text any longer. For Paris, “public money going to Europeans does not mean that there are no discussions with countries in the European Economic Area or trusted third countries”.
European preference can very well include “countries with the same values, compliant environmental rules and a European destiny with us”.
For Austria’s Minister for the Economy, Energy and Tourism, Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, the “current geo-economic upheavals and the resumption of discussions with the United States clearly demonstrate that we need to focus more on our strengths”.
“We must ensure that, when Austrian taxpayers’ money is used, added value and jobs are maintained and created in Austria and Europe”.
The European steel industry is worried. The European steel industry, represented by EUROFER, warned on 26 February that the current draft text could steer public support for low-carbon steel towards producers outside the European Union, “unless legislators integrate and strengthen the ‘Made in Europe’ provisions”.
“The project requires at least 25% of the steel used in public procurement and support schemes to be low-carbon. However, it does not require this steel to be produced in Europe”.
“In today’s turbulent geopolitical context, it seems unthinkable that the steel industry is not being defined as strategic in the package”, comments Managing Director Axel Eggert.
“The EU must seize this opportunity to create conditions that encourage lead markets that give preference to European low-carbon steel. Only steel melted and poured in the EU should therefore qualify. EEA countries – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – could be also included in the scope, given their deep integration into the EU market”, adds EUROFER.
Further information: https://aeur.eu/f/kxe (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)