The textiles and clothing sector remains a major industrial pillar for Europe: approximately 192,000 companies (mostly small and medium-sized enterprises), 1.3 million workers and an annual turnover of approximately €167 billion underline its scale and importance. Yet, without timely and coordinated EU action, Europe faces the risk of losing competitiveness, expertise and thousands of high-quality jobs in the sector.

In a joint statement, social partners – representing both workers and employers – called for a robust and forward-looking European industrial strategy to ensure a fair, sustainable and competitive transformation of the textiles and clothing sector.

Key demands put forward by the social partners included:

• Urgent action to safeguard the European textiles ecosystem: ensuring fair global competition and confronting exploitative “fast-fashion” business models built on poverty wages.
• Boosting demand for sustainable and fair textiles: supporting EU-made products, deploying awareness campaigns, and embedding social and environmental criteria in public procurement and EU funding.
• Affordable, clean and secure energy: enabling SMEs and workers to manage the energy transition without job losses.
• Fair and transparent regulation: making sure that forthcoming instruments such as the Ecodesign Regulation and Digital Product Passport are practical, inclusive, and developed with social partner participation.
• Investment in people: channelling major funding into skills, training and reskilling via the EU Pact for Skills, promoting fair wages, decent work and collective bargaining, and embedding sustainability and digitalisation into vocational education and apprenticeships.
• A just and fair twin transition: aligning EU, national and regional authorities, putting labour rights, fair wages and social dialogue at the heart of policy implementation.

During the meeting, the social partners also adopted their 2026 Work Programme and committed to continuing their cooperation in the months ahead. By working together, they emphasised, the European textiles and clothing industry can be supported to transform in a way that benefits companies, workers and society alike.

Judith Kirton-Darling, industriAll Europe’s general secretary said: “We will not allow Europe’s textiles and clothing sector to be the victim of rapid change. Together we must ensure that transformation goes hand-in-hand with fairness, competitiveness and quality jobs.”

Read the joint statement here