Czech Business Today

The industrial policy flagship introduced by the European Commission in 2010 has set the roadmap for boosting competitiveness of European companies, creating new jobs and ensuring sustainable growth for the next decade. While some of the initiatives have been more or less successfully implemented, conditions on the European playground changed significantly over the past two years. 

The first indications of possible economic recovery proved to be very fragile and did not lead to desired economic growth. On the contrary, both business climate and consumer confidence indicators have been declining more or less constantly since early 2011. Therefore, the European Commission decided to review the two-year-old communication in order to adjust policies to current political and economical environment in the EU. According to the European Commission, the new communication should concentrate on small number of initiatives that should bring desired effects as soon as possible and in the meantime ensure stability in medium term period. To indicate which initiatives it should be was the purpose of public consultation opened from mid-May until early August. The European business community, including Czech entrepreneurial organisations, warmly welcomed the review of the communication. The Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic (SP CR), member of BUSINESSEUROPE, strongly supports certain initiatives that were either not fully or not at all implemented since 2010, e.g. full realization of so-called fitness checks, stronger support of research, development and innovations, adoption of the third energy package, proper implementation of Think small first principle or adoption of the EU raw materials strategy. 

In addition, SP CR calls for refusal of intentions to create common European standards for the process of corporate restructuring and supports the voluntary principle in implementing Corporate Social Responsibility. The Czech Chamber of Commerce, Member of EUROCHAMBRES and UEAPME, deems that the new industrial policy should enhance competitiveness of European industry on one hand and take into account its sustainability on the other. Therefore it must be conceived in broader context as it is linked to various EU and national policies. For this reason it is necessary evaluate potential impact of future initiatives in areas such as innovation and R&D, standardization, IPR, employment, energy and environment, investments, ICT and transport networks. Last but not least, the Chamber says that policy-makers should always be conscious of the need of better regulation. 

The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic pointed out three main areas in its contribution to the consultation: education, single market and energy. While unemployment raises constantly, companies lack skilled workforce, and therefore it is vital for education programmes to take into account thoroughly the needs of markets and companies. While taking full advantage of the Single Market elimination of costs for companies, it would also increase innovative potential and competitiveness of European industry. However, this potential could be seriously undermined by insufficient energy security and poor infrastructure, therefore modernisation of energy networks should be at the centre of focus. In addition, broader use of fitness checks should ensure that legislative proposals will not increase administrative burden and will not harm companies. The new communication based on public consultation contributions is expected to be adopted by the European Commission in September this year.