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The EU’s new business chief has referred to as for a “Europe first” technique for key enterprise sectors, in a bid to stop the bloc turning into collateral injury in a possible world commerce conflict sparked by Donald Trump.
European Fee vice-president Stéphane Séjourné, a former French international minister and shut ally of President Emmanuel Macron, advised the Monetary Instances that Europe should act on the “offensive” to advertise its strategic enterprise pursuits and keep away from being flooded by closely subsidised imports from China.
“I fundamentally believe that Europe has everything to gain from being open to the world,” mentioned Séjourné, who’s in command of the bloc’s industrial coverage. However “when China says ‘Made in China’ or the US says ‘America First’, we must say: ‘Made in Europe’ or ‘Europe First’”.
The brand new fee has pledged to revive the bloc’s competitiveness over the following 5 years, a activity that may change into more durable if US president-elect Donald Trump acts on his threats to slap sweeping tariffs on all imports, tear up commerce offers and slash rules for US companies.
Séjourné mentioned his “biggest fear” was that Europe would change into “a collateral victim of a global trade war”.
“If all the world markets close, the only remaining open market cannot be the European market,” he mentioned. “If the United States closes to Latin America, closes to India, closes to China, the European market cannot be the destination for all the overcapacities in the world, otherwise we will find ourselves in a situation of short-term economic crisis.”
Brussels should ship a “firm message to the United States to tell them that, today, we see no reason to devalue our trade discussion and our trade exchanges”, he mentioned. “The new administration must realise that . . . they also have nothing to gain from having a trade war.”
He disregarded criticism that the EU was pursuing a protectionist agenda.
“It’s not at all about protectionism because Europe really has no interest in a global trade war,” he added. “We have a strategic and technological interest to develop our own industries, to create employment and to create growth.”
Séjourné acknowledged the “negative music” about Europe’s economic system, which has been hit in current weeks by lay-offs from carmakers and steelmakers, and the collapse of Swedish electrical battery producer Northvolt, which was heralded because the continent’s inexperienced transition bellwether.
He mentioned the fee would focus efforts on strategic sectors together with metal, automotive manufacturing and aerospace, in addition to clear applied sciences.
“It will be necessary to do so in a very targeted manner, on important strategic sectors. But you have to do it offensively and not defensively,” he mentioned.
“Historic” industries have to be protected as a result of they supply “very important support” for the clear applied sciences important to the inexperienced transition, Séjourné argued.
“In reality [steelmaking] is strategic because there are no wind turbines without steel. There is no car production without steel,” he mentioned. “So, if we want to develop other industries, we need a steel industry.”
On the identical time, clear applied sciences resembling hydrogen and digital applied sciences may very well be “plugged in” to probably the most closely polluting industries to chop emissions.
The brand new fee, which took workplace on December 1, would outline the important sectors in its first 100 days, he mentioned. One other key coverage effort could be to lastly convey collectively the bloc’s capital markets to create a greater funding surroundings — a long-standing ambition that has been thwarted by objections from member states.
“We want to give life to a European industrial policy and an economic doctrine, which we have not had so far,” he mentioned. “We have so far had a juxtaposition of different measures that were sometimes not coherent with each other.”
In a serious blow to Brussels’ present industrial technique, Northvolt, the EU’s best-funded start-up, filed for Chapter 11 chapter final week, leading to tons of of thousands and thousands of euros of losses for traders together with Goldman Sachs and the EU itself, which assured about €300mn value of loans to the corporate.
Séjourné mentioned he needed to reassure traders that “Europe will not abandon the battery industry”.
“We must not have remorse for having established this sector, for having helped and subsidised them and above all when they go through a technological problem not let everything we did in the past be destroyed just by the first difficulty,” he added.
