BRUSSELS — The European Council held a summit on 20-21 March to discuss issues of industrial competitiveness, and were asked by the European Commission to signal a clear political commitment to re-industrialization.
The Commission also called on the European Council to endorse the Commission’s goal of increasing the contribution of manufacturing to 20 per cent of the EU GDP by 2020 and to set out an implementation framework for the consistent and coordinated application of policy actions in the realm of a European industrial policy.
“CECIMO welcomes the attention given by the EU to the manufacturing industry at the highest political level. By recognizing the European industrial base as a key driver of economic growth and jobs, the summit conclusions rightly point to manufacturing as the main building block of future European economy,” stated Jean-Camille Uring, CECIMO President and CEO of Fives Group.
“We are particularly pleased to see that the summit conclusions make a clear reference to key enabling technologies, which includes our industry as provider of advanced manufacturing technologies, being the backbone of industrial competitiveness.” Uring continued.
The implementation of ‘projects of European interest’ in the area of high performance production has a great potential to mobilise significant funds from public and private actors to set up a strong infrastructure for close-to-market research.
The impact on industrial competitiveness will be two-fold. SMEs will have a facilitated access to validation and testing infrastructure, which will allow them to bring new technologies to the market faster and to increase return on their investments in innovation. Secondly, by turning Europe into a state-of-the art base for technological research, these projects can boost attractiveness of Europe for manufacturing investments.
“We strongly endorse the European Council’s call on Member States and the Commission to address skills shortages in the area of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM skills) as a matter of priority.
“Technological edge is the most important asset for Europe to remain competitive in global markets and it builds on a highly skilled workforce.” Uring said.
Although the summit conclusions set out selecive policy priorities with a focus on innovation and skills to enhance industrial competitiveness, the European Council remains vague on the methods to implement those priorities in a coordinated and integrated manner within a European context.
Filip Geerts, CECIMO Director General, said in a statement, “It is very positive to see that the European Council sends a clear signal on its intention to make industrial competitiveness a priority across policy areas. However, it does not provide clear guidance on how to put it into practice. We do not see how and within which framework policy integration and coordination will be carried out at EU level and between Member States.”
He added, “Defining appropriate mechanisms for policy coordination and synchronisation will remain an absolute necessity to break from fragmented and weak policies of the past. The EU needs to reassure industry that re-industrialization ambitions are accompanied by an industrial policy with sharper teeth.”
CECIMO is the European Association of the Machine Tool Industries, and bring together 15 national associations of machine tool builders. CECIMO covers 98 per cent of total machine tool production in Europe and about 34 per cent worldwide.
It accounts for almost 150,000 employees and a turnover of over €22 billion in 2012. More than 83 per cent of CECIMO production is shipped abroad, wheras almost half of it is exported outside Europe.
www.cecimo.eu
