Sectoral initiatives and overall competitiveness of the EU

Practical information

• Administrator: Adam DORYWALSKI / Assistant: Théodore KOUMAKIS
• Composition of the study group 
• Contact CCMI

Background

The well-functioning Single Market is a main asset of the EU. It is clearly the quality of the overall legislative framework that matters for businesses when making investment decisions, being a key competitiveness factor.

At the same time, a number of initiatives was put forward by the EU, that target specific sectors, such as the Critical Raw Materials Act, the Net Zero Industry Act (as a part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan) and the Chips Act. They look promising, as there is a clear necessity for them in current difficult economic and tense global situation. However, they are focused on targeting front-runner businesses, while others may be less able to benefit from new policies.

In addition to this, there is still a number of new industrial sectoral initiatives which is envisaged to be proposed by the EU e.g., on biotech and biomanufacturing, advanced materials, defence industry and on critical medicines. Taking the above into account, it would be worthwhile examining how all these policy initiatives and similar ones in the future could reach out to more sectors, including SMEs, and how they could contribute to the competitiveness of the EU.