The European Commission releases a renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy

“I want to make our industry stronger and more competitive” stated President Jean-Claude Juncker on 13 September 2018, during its speech on the State of the Union. “The new Industrial Policy Strategy we are presenting today will help our industries stay or become the world leader in innovation, digitisation and decarbonisation“, he added to confirm the commitment of the EU to support industrial competitiveness.

In its Communication “Investing in a smart, innovative and sustainable Industry. A renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy”, the European Commission brought together existing and new initiatives under a single package to reinforce industry’s cybersecurity to a new series of actions on Circular Economy. Glass for Europe welcomed the initiative and joined other EU industrial sectors on a position paper which identify key objectives, but also missing measures that could support the development of a thoughtful EU industrial strategy. In the paper, the European manufacturing industry call on the European Commission to:

• reaffirm its commitment to reaching the target of 20% of GDP from industry, with an ambitious and realistic timeline;
• adopt an Action Plan to tackle the challenges that the industrial sectors are facing, in the framework of a Communication that would include concrete steps and milestones; and
• commit to implement this Action Plan in a timely manner and regularly report on progress.

Download the Joint Position paper For an ambitious industrial strategy