Industry says EU policies too green to foster innovation

The Commission’s Enterprise and Industry Director-General Heinz Zourek explained that the 2005 industrial policy is necessary because there was a realisation that the Lisbon Strategy’s focus on creating a knowledge-based economy had sparked a large growth of sectors such as cyber-technology and e-commerce, while more traditional sectors were neglected. 

A member of the public, representing the Aluminium industry, commented that “there had been, in Europe, an idea that industry can be offered away to the developing countries and that we here can live only on services”. He said he was glad that the Commission was again focusing its attention on industry, saying we cannot live only on services. “I think we can also not live on ‘environmental-friendliness’,” he added. 

Edward G. Krubasik from Siemens AG agreed that there was a “need to get back to basics”. He said Europe had built up a large wealth base thanks to its industries but had then spent too long simply living off this wealth while concentrating on other issues, such as social welfare and the environment. These are important, he said, but “our wealth base began disintegrating and we started to feel the carpet being pulled out under our feet”. He said that the way to speed up economic growth is to foster competition. “We have to make sure that every sector is really alive and awake,” he said. 

Fabrizio D’Adda, Chairman of UNICE’s Industrial Affairs Committee, said he believed that better regulation to encourage risk-taking and innovation was necessary to drive innovation and economic growth, adding that industry was still awaiting progress in this area from the Commission’s “Better Regulation” initiative. He added it was "all very well" carrying out impact assessments, but that ex-post evaluations were needed to see if regulation was really delivering what is supposed to. “If not, you scrap it. This is better regulation,” he said. 

Ivan Hodac, Secretary General of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), agreed, saying that the regulatory framework and competitiveness are linked. “We are competing with countries where people work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We do not want protectionism from the Commission and member states, we want an environment where we can easily innovate and build up our competitiveness,” he said. 

Hungarian MEP Edit Herczog (PES)  responded to this saying that even the best regulation will not in itself create a good business framework: “The European economy is like an iceberg and legislation is only the tip. If the iceberg is melting away, it is not up to the tip to save it.” Business must do more to influence politicians because for the moment, she said, “environmental groups are the ones steering the legislative process”. To extend its influence, business must speak out more so as to be recognised as “a nicer place”, she said, because, for the moment, “being industry-friendly is a suicide route for a politician”. 

Hodac agreed that European law-makers listen more to environment groups than to industry because this is more popular and asked what industry must do to make them listen. He also reminded Herczog that: “If this [being industry-friendly] is political suicide for MEPs, then it means economic suicide for the European economy.” 

Zourek responded by saying that industry can make its case with reliable information. He said that industry communication on the REACH regulation on chemicals (see our LinksDossier on the subject) had been considered to be overly “aggressive and one-sided”, joking that this was the privilege of environmental NGOs only. He said the key issue was that industry’s view had been represented only by the chemical industry – which “has a bad name and was viewed as only fighting its own battle”. Downstream users spoke out far too late, he said, which is why they failed to influence MEPs. On the other hand, he praised industry’s current stance in the debate on energy, noting that this was a calm and all-encompassing debate where industry comes across as one of the overall network of stakeholders. “Once industry becomes detached from this network, then it is seen badly,” he said. 

In a closing speech given at the workshop, Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen agreed that “the voice of businesses is not always properly heard and understood at EU level” and agreed that this affected the success of the reforms that are being implemented. He encouraged businesses to participate more actively in the consultation process to ensure that their voice is fully heard.