MNI: EU To Commit To Industrial Strategy - Draft Report
MNI (BRUSSELS) - European Union leaders will commit to developing an EU industrial strategy and to cut corporate reporting requirements by 25% at their summit in Budapest later this week, according to draft conclusions seen by MNI.
They will also commit to producing a clear timeline for deepening the single market by mid-2025 and to establish a Savings and Investments Union by 2026, as they endorse calls by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta for urgent action to to close the bloc's competitiveness and innovation gap with its global competitors.
An industrial policy will “ensure the growth of tomorrow's key technologies, while paying particular attention to traditional industries in transition" in a nod to the EU's challenged automotive and other industrial sectors.
SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT REQUIRED
The all-important energy section is yet to be filled in, but the draft concedes that the EU's competitiveness challenge will "require significant investment, mobilising both public and private financing. (See MNI: European Parliament To Oppose EU Joint Funds - EP Sources)
Key planks in the financing strategy include the EU's long-term budget 2028-2034, completing the Capital Markets Union in order to tap private financing and an increased role for the European Investment Bank as well as the "development of new instruments." (See MNI: EU Commission To Decide On Rolling Over Some NGEU Debt)
"I guess for some (that means) more joint (EU) financing," one EU source said.
The summit in Budapest under the Hungarian EU presidency will be attended by Draghi himself, who will present his recent competitiveness report to EU leaders for the first time as well as by ECB President Christine Lagarde who has been increasingly and publicly supportive of the competitiveness agenda.