Delaying a strong Made in Europe policy is placing the EU at a severe disadvantage compared with its most successful competitors, sacrificing jobs and industries in a naïve reliance on a laissez faire strategy of the past.

That is among the key findings of a new report for the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) by experts Anaïs Voy-Gillis and Tristan Ménere: Making the Industrial Accelerator Act deliver for European industry, workers and regions.

The European Commission says that the Act, which currently only covers around 15% of EU manufacturing, would already bring a net benefit of 8 billion Euro a year to the European economy and would generate and maintain around 150,000 jobs.

‘World norm’

At a time when industrial jobs are being slashed – over 850,000 manufacturing jobs have been cut between 2019 and 2023, a figure which is only accelerating as illustrated by the recently announced plans to cut jobs at VW, the ETUC says the Act must be strengthened to ensure it applies to more sectors and secures more quality jobs. Opponents say though that the Act runs contrary to Europe’s commitment to free trade.

Hitting back at those claims, the report points out that local content requirement is the world norm, not a European aberration and sets out what lessons can be learned from similar policies in the United States, China, India, Brazil and Indonesia.

“The alternative is not autarky,” the study concludes. “It is a more deliberate form of European openness : production can involve foreign-owned firms and international partners, but access to policy-shaped demand is connected to substantive contribution, reciprocity, resilience and rights.”

Based on global best practice, the report has five recommendations for the Industrial Accelerator Act:

• Third countries should only be included based on reciprocity and equivalent standards;
• Origin rules must reflect the whole supply chain and not only final assembly;
• Progressive quotas that increase Made in Europe production requirements over time;
• Cost derogations must be exceptional and take account of dumping and foreign subsidies;
• Binding quality-job and territorial conditions are required wherever public demand is created.

Commenting on the report, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said:

“The EU needs to get with the times and realise that relying on open trade alone will not cut it anymore. Europe has been sleepwalking towards deindustrialisation because we have shied away from backing our industries in the same way that our competitors have backed theirs. This report demonstrates how we can learn from them to create good jobs and industrial capacity.

“Millions of skilled jobs depend on Europe having a real industrial policy. The cost of our energy bills depend on it. Our ability to defend ourselves depends on it. This is no time for half-measures.”

ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet added:

“Working people are fed up of seeing their jobs threatened, their companies restructured, and their communities emptied and then being told it is the inevitable result of globalisation. That is not true. Deindustrialisation has been the result of naive political choices.

“While governments across the world have been actively growing their domestic industries, some European leaders have pretended that doing nothing was an oath of allegiance to the concept of free trade. This report demonstrates that the Industrial Accelerator Act is not about protectionism but about finally starting to level the playing field for Europe’s companies and workers.”

IndustriAll Europe General Secretary Judith Kirton-Darling, said:

“With up to 1.3 million European manufacturing jobs at risk in the coming months, Europe cannot afford to manage industrial decline. The Industrial Accelerator Act must be a turning point – putting Made in Europe at its heart and driving investment into Europe’s workers, factories and industrial regions. The money to invest exists. The real question is where companies choose to invest it, we call on them to commit to Europe.”