CALLS ON EU POLITICAL LEADERS TO AGREE INDUSTRIAL COMPACT TO ENCOURAGE INVESTMENT, GROWTH AND RE-SHORING
BUSINESSEUROPE, the leading voice of industry in Brussels, today (Tuesday) published its blueprint for a comprehensive EU industrial strategy, setting out the key policy drivers that will make European industry more competitive in an ever tougher global environment.
Endorsed by business leaders from all EU countries, the blueprint – or critical action plan – identifies the seven areas where innovative EU policy measures and active reform can deliver growth, attract inward investment and encourage the re-shoring of jobs and activities lost to other more competitive world regions in recent years.
Launching the blueprint, titled ‘Industry Matters’, at the organisation’s flagship conference in Brussels, BUSINESSEUROPE President Emma Marcegaglia called on the EU’s political leaders to look outward at the global picture when considering Europe’s industrial future: “The manufacturing sector today provides 32 million direct and 20 million indirect jobs in Europe, with a GDP contribution just above 15%. Our blueprint identifies the potential for adding up to 400,000 jobs a year in this sector, if it can reach 20% of GDP. However, if the EU does not quickly change its policy focus to compete more aggressively with the world’s established and rising economic blocs, a pattern of industrial decline is inevitable. We must
act now: tomorrow will be too late”, she said.
The BUSINESSEUROPE blueprint, which Marcegaglia presented to the Presidents of all three EU institutions, identifies seven policy areas where investment, renewal and reform would act as competitive game-changers, if EU governance structures put industrial competitiveness at the forefront of policy making:
• Energy and climate policy
• Access to finance
• Foreign trade and a strong Single Market
• Innovation, research & development
• Trans-European (and national) infrastructure
• Labour market flexibility
• Education and skills
Underlining the urgency felt by her fellow business leaders, Ms Marcegaglia urged swift political action not rhetoric on industrial competitiveness: “The start in 2014 of a new five year EU political cycle is the optimum time to cement Europe’s global future with industry at its core”, she concluded.
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