Raw materials, hydrogen, batteries, semiconductors, transport, food, cybertechnology or pharmaceutical patents are some of the major categories in which the European Commission has placed a protectionist magnifying glass with the aim of guaranteeing the industrial autonomy of the European Union and avoiding breaks in supply chains.
His intention is to carry out a “probing exercise” among more than 5,000 “critical” products to determine the level of dependence on third countries of each of them and “offer a basic input to the Commission, to see where to build resilient value chains” , stated yesterday from the Euskaldun Palace in Bilbao the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders.
“We must continue to protect European industry against market distortions” and promote “better domestic production and manufacturing capacity for certain strategic products,” he added.
Reynders announced the initiative after the meeting of the 27 EU Industry Ministers in Bilbao, at a press conference with the Spanish Minister Héctor Gómez and the Secretary of State for the European Union, Pascual Navarro. It was one of the few novelties of an informal meeting conceived to contrast different reindustrialization strategies and prepare another meeting in Granada in October in which to specify measures.
In the background is the accelerated loss of European industrial autonomy evidenced first with the pandemic and then with the invasion of Ukraine. The Spanish presidency attended the meeting yesterday with a basic document focused precisely on the concept of industrial resilience and dedicated itself to acting as an arbitrator, without going into the fine print.
What is at stake this semester is the creation of a roadmap on the strategic industrial autonomy of the EU. It is a matter of establishing financing for reindustrialization initiatives, a public aid regime and new mechanisms for the protection of value chains so that they serve as a reference for the European Commission that will be set up next year.
Brussels, as Reynders explained, is also sounding out among the partners their impression about subsidies for community products. The idea is to protect them from abroad, but without disrupting the single market through unbalanced State aid. “It is important to reduce European dependence on third countries,” insisted Reynders to justify this particular protectionist lace making. In the next two months of the Spanish presidency, Brussels wants to promote a regulation on raw materials and a proposal on a carbon neutral economy. “The measures go hand in hand with others to facilitate investment, preventing investors from fleeing Europe,” he added.
“One of the great objectives of the Spanish presidency –assured Héctor Gómez– “is to achieve a road map to achieve the objective of reindustrialization”. The Commission is also working on a new regulation on chips and on an emergency mechanism that guarantees supply chains in cases of crisis.
