Czech Business Today
Industrial strategy must increase competitiveness of European companies
On 5th May, the European Commission updated the 2020 industrial strategy in the light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The updated strategy aims to support European industry in developing strategic capacity needs, finding alternative solutions for dependencies of supplies, but also tackling unfair practices and foreign subsidies that distort the level playing field in the single market and it was discussed by representatives of EU institutions, Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade and employers’ organizations at an online debate co-organized by CEBRE on 25th May.
Speakers agreed that the EU must stay an open market because that is one of the biggest competitive advantages of the single market, and needs to focus on creating high value-added products. There must be a level playing field for all companies regardless of whether they are European or not.
Czech business organizations welcomed the updated version of the strategy and stressed that businesses will play a crucial role in the two main policies of the European Commission, which are green and digital transition. Special attention needs to be paid to small and medium-sized enterprises that were hit hard by the current crisis, and provide them with instruments to grow without overloading them with administrative burdens.
Furthermore, there are huge opportunities for Czech companies to get involved in the industrial alliances, for example in the area of batteries or cloud computing. Especially small and medium-sized companies should participate in the alliances in order to boost their growth. Businesses also stressed that the concept of the open strategic autonomy that the European Commission presented in the updated strategy will be an important one not only from the point of view of the internal market, but it will have an impact on the EU trade policy as well.
The EU can’t be naïve in the global context, but it would also be naïve to think that the EU can prosper without strong ties to its trade partners. Last but not least, all the speakers agreed that a skilled workforce is an essential prerequisite for the industrial strategy to be a success.
