Yesterday, I-Com hosted a Foresight Talk on the recently issued Clean Industrial Deal and the future scenarios for European industries. The event featured a keynote speech by MEP Letizia Moratti (EPP), who, as a Member of the ITRE Committee, shared some thoughts on the new Commission’s strategy and outlined critical aspects for achieving a decarbonised yet competitive European industrial sector.
Cristina Orlando, I-Com senior research fellow, provided an overview on the status of clean tech production and third partners dependency, energy costs and most-at-risk sector, the Clean Industrial Deal and the Action Plan for the Automotive Industry.
Participants agreed upon the importance od the EU’s full commitment to the clean economy transition and to upholding the relevance of a decarbonization plan and the opportunities this can bring in terms of industrial sector growth and new job creation. However, evidence shows that several sectors are struggling to align with the net-zero impact goal. As also reported in I-Com’s study, EU clean tech manufactures are facing higher costs than its global competitor and are still highly depends on imports, as this is the case for PV panels (40% imported in 2024). Compared to China, the problem of our production capacity lies in the impossibility to build a value chain for technologies as we lack critical materials. It is precisely China that fills this gap providing 66% of the world’s critical raw materials such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and graphite. Therefore, in the words of the MEP, “if today the Union is dependent on fossil fuel tomorrow it will be dependent on raw materials”. Moreover, energy intensive industries such as iron and steel, chemical and petrochemical, and non-metallic minerals ones, are the sector hit the most by energy crisis and higher costs.
Finally, all this data must be framed into a Eurozone industrial decrease of 2.2% and nearly one million manufacture job loss between July 2023-2024.
Considering this, decarbonization must not become a contributing factor to the current “deindustrialization”. Therefore, Letizia Moratti concluded that the EU should focus on three fundamental priorities for a sustainable clean industrial transition: lowering the energy price and reducing third countries dependency through a diversification of energy solution, taking courageous decisions when previous strategies proved ineffective and enhancing the capital market Union. For what regards the former, the EU must unlock its full investment potential by incentivizing European saving spendings – which for the 35% are currently sitting in bank accounts, and by overcoming investment fragmentation and flows of capitals abroad. In this sense, private investment is a pivotal complementary tool to EU funds – as for instance the €100 billion of the Industrial Decarbonization Bank envisaged by the CID – for supporting technological innovation.
Thanks to all participants for the attending and the engaging Q&A that followed!
