A NEW STRATEGY FOR EUROPE

Many small and medium-sized enterprises are on the brink of extinction and the European internal market is virtually at a standstill. Competitive, greener and digital. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, has announced a new industrial strategy to bring this to an end.

A strategy designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, which is intended to reduce bureaucracy and motivate financing incentives in order to make Europe a pioneer of change. Support for industry, start-ups, SMEs, research centres, etc. is designed to safeguard jobs and prosperity and to meet environmental and digital challenges. But how realistic is the implementation?

Drivers of our industry

The European Commission is focusing on three drivers to transform the industry. As described on the official website of the EU Commission these are:

• Ecological change: the European Green Deal is Europe’s new growth strategy

• Digital change: economic actors are becoming more proactive, the workforce is acquiring new skills and the decarbonisation of our economy is being driven forward.

• Global competitiveness: Europe must use the power of its internal market as a lever to set global standards”.

However, as German magazine IT-Zoom writes, companies from Germany and Europe are having a hard time competing globally. In other regions of the world, such as China, for example, different conditions apply due to government subsidies and climate protection requirements. However, the amount of money that may be spent is not recorded in the strategy papers. Whether this can be considered a strategy or rather a vision for Europe remains unclear.

Image source: iStock /ThomasVogel