Trilateral meeting of economy ministers. Better supply of raw materials among the topics.
France, Italy, and Germany want to work more closely together to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy. The three countries’ economy ministers, Bruno Le Maire, Adolfo Urso, and Robert Habeck, spoke out in favor of these goals at a meeting in Meudon near Paris. The targeted economic growth is to focus on green and digital technologies such as renewable energies, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors.
The background to the meeting was the European Council’s strategic agenda for the next five years until 2029. A key event in the last period from 2019 to 2024 was the coronavirus pandemic, with Europe lagging behind other major economies in overcoming it, according to the ministers. Now, targeted support for EU industrial policy is needed. The central pillars are the reduction of bureaucracy and the promotion of private and public investment. The Handelsblatt quotes Le Maire as saying that this is also intended to counter competition from China and the USA. Both countries support the domestic green tech sector with massive subsidies, among other things. Unlike Le Maire, however, Habeck and Urso spoke out against emulating the protectionism there and giving preference to products “Made in Europe” in public tenders.
The three countries also want to cooperate better in the supply of the raw materials required for numerous technologies, for example, by promoting coordinated purchasing, recycling and circular economy as well as cross investment. This is also the aim of the first EU-wide raw materials law, the Critical Raw Materials Act, which is due to come into force shortly; more domestic mining and the reduction of one-sided import dependencies are also planned.
