An informal gathering of EU ministers has failed to bridge divisions over how far governments should go in using public money to create demand for European firms and counter US and Chinese competition.<\/p>\n
EU ministers responsible for competitiveness met for two days in Cyprus, the current EU presidency holder, ahead of a key leaders\u2019 retreat in Belgium next week.<\/p>\n
The talks produced little in the way of concrete decisions, and the ministers\u2019 reluctance to address the topic at a press conference on Tuesday (3 February) suggested an agreement on \u201cBuy in Europe<\/a>\u201d rules is still some way off.<\/p>\n At issue is whether public procurement and subsidy schemes should explicitly favour European goods and suppliers over foreign ones.<\/p>\n Public procurement accounts for around 15 percent of EU GDP and is seen by some member states as an area where national governments can help domestic companies prevail against foreign competitors.<\/p>\n Paris vs Berlin?<\/p>\n French officials have been pushing hardest. <\/p>\n Europe can cut its reliance on \u201cthird powers\u201d like China or the US through subsidies and a \u201creinforced preference for European goods,\u201d said Thomas Courbe, director general for enterprise at France\u2019s economy ministry, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n In recent months, Paris has argued that stronger European preferences are needed to rebuild industrial capacity and give EU firms a fighting chance in strategic sectors such as clean tech, batteries and defence<\/a>.<\/p>\n That line was echoed last week by industry commissioner St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9 in a letter<\/a> published in a dozen European newspapers on Sunday.<\/p>\n The letter was co-signed by 1,141 business leaders advocating for \u201ca true European preference in our most strategic sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n But Germany and several smaller, export-oriented member states warn that blanket \u2018buy European\u2019 rules could drive up costs, weaken competition and, crucially, provoke retaliation from trading partners.<\/p>\n Talks on a \u20ac90bn EU loan for Ukraine also went nowhere, with member states once again split over a European preference clause and who should be allowed to benefit. The Cypriot presidency will now propose a new compromise later this week.<\/p>\n Economist Lukas Bertram of the ZOE Institute<\/a>, which published a report<\/a> on the issue on Tuesday, told EUobserver the tools carry both \u201cbig potential and big risks\u201d and should be \u201ctargeted.\u201d<\/p>\n If properly done, buy-EU clauses could \u201csupport local jobs\u201d in sectors like battery production, green steel, or electric vehicles. But requiring producers or governments to buy European goods might also \u201craise prices and stifle innovation\u201d by reducing competition.<\/p>\n Another risk is potential retaliation. <\/p>\n \u201cExcluding foreign producers from public procurement and subsidy schemes might risk retaliation,\u201d Bertram said, noting Europe\u2019s vulnerability to supply chain disruption, \u201cespecially when it comes to China, and their chokehold on rare earths.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said the approach should be technology-specific, \u201csupporting electric vehicles but not combustion engines, or green steel over conventional production,\u201d and applied only where benefits outweigh price and geopolitical risks.<\/p>\n A leaked draft of the commission\u2019s forthcoming Industrial Accelerator Act, due 25 February, opens the door to using procurement and subsidies more strategically, though key details \u2014 including which sectors would qualify \u2014 remain unclear.<\/p>\n EU leaders are set to meet next week for a \u201cbrainstorming\u201d retreat on competitiveness, where buy-EU policies are expected to take centre stage ahead of the commission\u2019s report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An informal gathering of EU ministers has failed to bridge divisions over how far governments should go in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,219220,219226,219223,219218,219221,219224,219219,219222,219225],"class_list":{"0":"post-740118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-typedefinedterm","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-identifier4338","13":"tag-identifier4346","14":"tag-identifier4347","15":"tag-namechina","16":"tag-namecompetitiveness","17":"tag-nameindustry","18":"tag-termcodechina","19":"tag-termcodecompetitiveness","20":"tag-termcodeindustry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116008240049379210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740118","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=740118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}