{"id":60032,"date":"2025-04-29T11:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T11:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60032\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T11:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T11:04:12","slug":"eu-nowhere-near-meeting-microchip-target-warn-bloc-auditors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60032\/","title":{"rendered":"EU \u2018nowhere near\u2019 meeting microchip target, warn bloc auditors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union needs an urgent \u2018reality check\u2019 if it hopes to meet its target of a 20% share of the global market for microchips by 2030, according to a damning new report by the bloc\u2019s auditors.<\/p>\n

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has warned member states that while the 2022 EU Chips Act has brought new momentum to the European microchip<\/a> sector, there is a widening gap to bridge between ambition and reality if the industry is to be safeguarded against critical issues, including access to raw materials, rising energy costs, and increasing geopolitical tensions.<\/p>\n

According to the ECA\u2019s special report, The EU\u2019s Strategy for Microchips<\/a>, the EU is \u2018very unlikely\u2019 to meet its current target, despite at least \u20ac86 billion ploughed into the industry through both private and public investment.<\/p>\n

\"Financial<\/a><\/p>\n

The ECA said that although the European Commission has made reasonable progress on implementing its Digital Decade<\/a> strategy, which aimed for the region to double its share in the global production of semiconductors in the next five years, the bloc has suffered due to the lack of coordinated national investments from members.<\/p>\n

With the EU Commission responsible for just 5%, around \u20ac4.5 billion, of the \u20ac86 billion in estimated funding for the Chips Act up to 2030, the remainder is expected to come from member states and industry, something the ECA points out the Commission has no mandate to control.<\/p>\n

Going by the European Commission\u2019s own forecast, published in July 2024, the EU\u2019s overall share of the global value chain in the chips market will increase only slightly, from 9.8% in 2022 to just 11.7% by 2030.<\/p>\n

That limited growth comes despite European demand for microchips currently growing more quickly than EU-based chipmakers can supply them, pointing to production problems and issues with manufacturing at scale, underscored by EU industrial policy failures.<\/p>\n

Given that the Chips Act was designed as a bulwark against the EU\u2019s reliance on foreign supply chains<\/a> for what have become critical components, the ECA\u2019s findings show that the continent is still not on track to achieve any kind of strategic autonomy.<\/p>\n

The report warns that EU chip autonomy is \u2018impossible\u2019 with the bloc currently relying on Asian supply chains, in particular China, for over 30% of its mainstream microchips. With those countries looking to shore up their own manufacturing of chips as emerging technologies like AI are prioritised, the EU market is set to feel increased pressure in the years to come.<\/p>\n

That could have a devastating impact, with the report highlighting that a microchip shortage in the wake of the pandemic essentially collapsed the German car-making industry back to 1975 levels.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

In releasing the report, the ECA emphasised that these kinds of chip shortages are likely to become more common as geopolitical tensions and competing initiatives ramp up. The study said that while the EU works to boost its self-sufficiency in advanced microchips, other global economies are either consolidating their current advantages or racing to close the gap in areas where they\u2019ve fallen behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it worrying? We know that other continents, China, the US, Taiwan and South Korea, they are not sitting still,\u201d Annemie Turtelboom, who was in charge of the ECA audit, told reporters<\/a> at the study\u2019s launch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fast-moving field, with intense geopolitical competition, and we are currently far off the pace needed to meet our ambitions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 20% target was essentially aspirational \u2013 meeting it would require us to approximately quadruple our production capacity by 2030, but we are nowhere close to that with our current rate of progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU urgently needs a reality check in its strategy for the microchips sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union needs an urgent \u2018reality check\u2019 if it hopes to meet its target of a 20%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[30288,2000,31164,299,5187,2557,31165,1699,5167,20583,31166,31167],"class_list":{"0":"post-60032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-chips","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-eu-chips-act","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-commission","14":"tag-european-court-of-auditors","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-manufacturing","17":"tag-microchips","18":"tag-semiconductor-industry","19":"tag-semiconductors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114420925567495340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}