Ref. Ares(2022)1580770 - 03/03/2022
DG GROW
Meeting between Commissioner Breton and BDI President Russwurm
Virtual, 10 March 2021
Industrial Strategy, Digital policy, public procurement
BRIEFING NOTE (Commission Internal)
Scene setter/Context of the meeting:
You will meet with the new President of the BDI (Bundesverband
der Deutschen Industrie),
, and
The BDI is the umbrella organization of German industry and
industry-related services. It represents the interests of 40 trade
associations and more than 100,000 enterprises with around 8
million employees.
The meeting will revolve around three topics: the
update of the
Industrial Strategy (with a focus on business-friendly environment
for SMEs and the green transition), key
digital policy issues (GAIA-
X, data spaces, space projects) and
public procurement (IPI and
thresholds for the application of EU public procurement regime).
KEY messages
• As announced in the State of the Union address in September,
we will update the Industrial Strategy in the first half of 2021.
• To meet our increasingly ambitious climate targets, we are
deploying increasing support for the green transition.
• SMEs will be crucial to the success of our Industrial Strategy.
• In the Digital Decade Communication adopted yesterday [9/03],
we present a comprehensive vision for our digital leadership.
• European data spaces will be key for our future. We encourage
the commitment of German companies, especially in the area
of manufacturing, climate and mobility.
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Line to take
[Industrial Strategy and its update]
• The implementation of the
new Industrial Strategy is well on
track, with many measures already presented by the
Commission since March 2020.
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has confirmed its
priorities:
twin transitions, competitiveness and resilience.
• As announced in the State of the Union address in September,
we will update the Industrial Strategy in the first half of 2021.
[Support for the green transition]
• The twin transition will underpin our future competitiveness.
The Green Deal is Europe’s new growth strategy.
• Our ambition of 55% emission reductions by 2030 to reach
carbon neutrality by 2050 will require a profound
transformation of our industry, significant investments in
breakthrough technologies, and the
creation of new lead
markets.
• Investments in
decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries
will be a priority, including funding for breakthrough
technologies under Horizon Europe.
• Joint investments in the
battery value chain or clean hydrogen
to produce carbon-neutral steel are flagship actions for the
recovery.
• And we will support the creation of demand and lead markets
for
clean, low-carbon, energy-efficient and circular products
with a new product policy that introduces sustainability criteria
for goods sold in Europe.
• One example on how to get this right is the
Battery Alliance
approach.
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• In January, the Commission announced the approval of €2.9
billion public support by twelve Member States for a second
pan-European research and innovation IPCEI along the entire
battery value chain.
• Companies of all sizes can take part in IPCEIs, including SMEs.
Moreover, IPCEIs also need to demonstrate
spil over effects
that go beyond the participating organisations and member
states, bringing value for non-participating companies and local
communities.
• We welcome that several Member States, including Germany,
started to explore a
possible IPCEI on cloud and edge. We
encourage interested German industry partners to engage in
this project and come up with concrete and strategic
investment requirements.
• Hydrogen will of course play a big role in the decarbonisation of
industry: the Hydrogen Strategy and the
European Clean
Hydrogen Al iance with an investment agenda to support
ambitious deployment of hydrogen technologies until 2030.
• The roundtables of the Alliance will elaborate on a project
pipeline that will implement the 2030 objectives set in the
Strategy. The focus wil be on deployment of large projects.
• The deep decarbonisation of industry and mobility will require
abundant and affordable decarbonised energy.
• Industry’s efforts towards climate neutrality and sustainability
must also be seen in a global context. We need to
avoid carbon
leakage and ensure a level-playing field: we wil propose a new
WTO-compatible Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in
2021 for selected sectors.
• In addition, the EU continues to encourage its
global partners
to increase their level of ambition and to take all necessary
measures to meet the objectives of the Paris agreement.
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[SMEs]
• SMEs are central to the achievement of our industrial ambition.
They comprise the majority of companies in all
14 strategic
industrial ecosystems, and many of them are great innovators.
• Both the ‘frontrunners’ in terms of transition and innovation as
well as the ‘followers’ need an environment in which they can
thrive. And SMEs have been hit particularly badly by the crisis.
90% of SMEs saw their turnover fall; 2 out of 3 delayed
investment decisions; 1,5 million jobs were lost in SMEs.
• The
SME strategy has become the reference tool for supporting
SMEs. Many key actions were advanced to provide direct
support to SMEs during the peak of the pandemic (e.g. risk
capital for start-ups).
•
Reducing the regulatory burden for SMEs is one of the major
concerns of the SME strategy. The Commission will work for a
rigorous application of the SME test for any new EU legislative
initiative, including those related to the Green Deal.
• The
Enterprise Europe Network has been able to help SMEs
during the crisis and it supports them in the twin transition. For
example, specialised sustainability advisors are available to
support businesses.
• The new
European Digital Innovation Hubs will also support
the Enterprise Europe Network. Up to 240 Digital Innovation
Hubs will help SMEs integrate digital innovations into their
products, business models and processes.
[Digital Decade]
• In the
Digital Decade communication adopted yesterday [9
March], we present a comprehensive 2030 vision for Europe’s
digital leadership.
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• Digital
infrastructures and digital
skil s,
digital transformation
of businesses and of the
public sector are the four cardinal
points of Europe’s Digital Decade.
[Data and cloud infrastructures]
• We will invest around €2 billion in
European cloud federation
and data spaces.
• Data spaces supported through the
Digital Europe programme
will allow companies to share and manage data with the highest
standards on security, privacy, and data portability.
• We very much welcome the fact that the
BDI is actively
contributing to the shaping of these data spaces through its
working group, but also through studies.
• We would like to call on the BDI to motivate its members to get
actively involved in the emerging data spaces by investing and
coming up with ideas for fair valorisation models, when setting
up European data spaces in the area of
manufacturing or
mobility.
• European data, in particularly industrial data, need to be
shared, stored and processed in line with European rules. We
introduced a R
egulation on European data governance and we
will present
a Data Act.
• Our proposal on a
Data Act to provide the best conditions for
the access to and control over data in B2B and B2G situations,
for a fairer data economy.
• I am glad that all EU Member States have signed the declaration
on ‘
Building a next generation cloud in Europe’, which
acknowledges the urgent need to cooperate to foster Europe’s
technological sovereignty in the area of data processing. We
must act together and rapidly.
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• Ambitious private and national investments will be needed to
create the next generation of European data processing
backbone, so that we can
move from cloud to edge.
• In order to stimulate needed investments and increase
European capacities, we
intend to launch soon a European
Al iance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud.
•
GAIA-X shows that German industry is not only on board, but
wants to actively and urgently advance the topic.
• The planned investments in open source technologies and in
first industrial applications, as we see them in the draft
Recovery Plan,
can be further strengthened.
• We encourage interested German industry partners to engage
in this project and come up with concrete and strategic
investment requirements.
[Data spaces - Space]
• The EU is promoting the use and uptake of
Copernicus as a
driver of innovation for the European Data Economy.
• Thanks to modern ICT technologies, the integration of
Copernicus data assets into
European Data Spaces with data
contributed by other vertical domains will enable sizeable and
scalable applications.
• This will greatly enhance
Copernicus downstream market.
Likewise, many vertical domains, for example agriculture,
health, energy etc. will benefit from the use of Copernicus.
• We are working to build bridges between our digital and space
programmes to maximize business opportunities for everyone.
•
Cassini, our support programme for space targeting start-ups
and SME, also strives to promote space outside the space
bubble, by making European Space Infrastructures and data
known to the larger ICT stakeholders.
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• By increasing use and reuse, the EU maximises its return on
investments on Space, creates opportunities for new business,
and increases the number of qualified jobs in Europe.
[The importance of space projects for digitalization (‘New Space’)]
• The future growth of the space industry relies on a combination
of strong institutional leadership and an
industrial New Space
thrust – where private companies will increasingly emerge as
forerunners in space technology and space missions.
• To be able to penetrate more markets and find new paying
customers for digital services based on space data, Europe’s
space industry needs better access to investment to fund their
expansion plans.
• The
economic growth of the space industry globally has been a
rapid expansion of approximately 7% annually over the last 15
years, and in the coming decade internet connectivity via space
and autonomous devices will power another period of strong
growth.
• Navigation maps and weather alarms on smart phones are just
the beginning: up next are a broad range of automated devices,
self-driving vehicles and autonomous industrial manufacturing.
• At the same time, we are faced with chal enges of ensuring a
sustainable and equitable society.
• Europe’s strategy is to achieve the objectives of sustainability,
economic growth and more strategic autonomy by linking the
EU Space Programme with the Green and Digital Agendas.
• The instruments used to deliver on this will include the Space
Programme and CASSINI Space Entrepreneurship Initiative,
Horizon Europe and Digital Europe Programme. To improve
access to finance, EIF and EIB will implement the financial
products defined by the Commission under InvestEU.
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[Public procurement - IPI]
• In view of the current imbalance in openness of global
procurement markets, it is important that the EU takes a more
assertive stance. The adoption of the
International
Procurement Instrument is key for achieving reciprocity.
• The file is currently progressing quite well in the Council under
the leadership of the Portuguese Presidency.
• The
support by German industry is of key importance to the
finalisation of the IPI.
[Public procurement – thresholds]
• We do not plan to propose an increase of the
thresholds for the
application of the EU public procurement regime.
• The current situation does not require higher threshold values.
• The public procurement Directives
provide for the necessary
flexibility for public buyers to purchase goods and services
directly linked to the COVID-19 crisis as quickly as possible.
• The Commission aims for publication of the Article 92 report
(after reviewing the economic effects resulting from the
application of the thresholds) still in 2021.
Defensives / Q&A
Public procurement
Question: Why has the Commission not published the Article 92 report by April 2019 as
foreseen in the directive?
Answer: Transposition of the 2014 Public Procurement Directives by Member States was
delayed on average by two years. There are still ongoing infringement procedures
concerning individual countries and issues.
This has also delayed the publication of the report pursuant Article 92 of Directive
2014/24/EU originally foreseen for April 2019. The Commission has postponed all of its
reporting activities under the Directives to 2021.
It is necessary, in our view, to give public authorities more time to apply the rules and get
a better idea of their effects. In addition, the COVID crisis, which required flexible ad-hoc
responses to special needs in public purchasing, has led to further delays when it comes
to applying the thresholds and a meaningful assessment of their effects.
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Question: What is the progress on the IPI proposal? When wil it be adopted?
The discussions in Council have progressed wel since spring 2019. We hope that the
Portuguese Presidency wil be able to secure consensus on a common way forward and
that agreement with EP is possible in 2021.
Background information
Name of Cabinet Member: L. CAUDET
Name of the Director who has cleared the briefing:
BASIS request ID: CAB BRETON 741
Room, time: 14:00
Participants:
Name of main contact person:
GROW F1),
CONNECT D1),
(DEFIS 01)
Digital topics - BDI
For the BDI, digital infrastructures is high on the agenda, including the topics of GAIA-X,
but also the rol out of 5G, the digitisation of smal and medium-sized enterprises and the
topic of eGovernment.
BDI consider the Commission’s digital and data strategy to be a key instrument for
providing a European response in the global competition for digital markets and business
models and are looking forward to the envisaged dialogue with the Commission on how
to further boost a European data economy.
As regards the development of European data spaces, the BDI and the German industry
are in particular interested in discussing with the Commission the priorities and
deliverables of data spaces in the area of manufacturing and mobility.
The German industry is involved in developing the Gaia-X cloud platform where
companies like Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, SAP and Robert Bosch play a key role. In
particular, the creation of digital trust is thereby of particular importance for industrial
companies.
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