The recently released Mario Draghi, Former European Central Bank President’s report on the EU chemical industry calls for an entire new spirit of lawmaking in Brussels. The report signals that there is a need of 4-5% of EU GDP to meet goals apart from three to four Marshall Plans, for which new financial tools need to be found. “All will have to cross boundaries and comfort zones,” the report states.

The objective of the report is to lay out a new industrial strategy for Europe to overcome barriers hindering the growth.

“Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice,” says Cefic President Ilham Kadri who is also the CEO of Syensqo, while lauding the recommendations of the report. “As a CEO of a global company facing global challenges, I can tell you every boardroom in the world is now watching how fast action is taken. It is not the time for business as usual in Europe. This report provides proposals that need urgent implementation: it is our chance to double down and get it right”. The report asks member states to review unanimity.

For the chemical industry, it will mean finding a way to combine decarbonisation, address our dependencies when facing global competition and financing the transition for hard-to-abate sectors for Europe to lead again.

“I believe I can say on behalf of all the signatories of the Antwerp Declaration that it is time for EU institutions and Member States to answer to this Wake-Up call for Europe. If these recommendations are not implemented, as Professor Draghi said today, Europe will be in slow agony. Industry and its workers do not have the luxury to be part of that. It is not only about closing the innovation gap, but about keeping existing capacity profitable in Europe,” Kadri added.

The Antwerp Declaration stressed the need for a 1st Vice President for the Industrial Deal. There is a need to combine industry, trade and competition policy in one integrated approach. Professor Draghi has come to the same conclusion. Almost 1300 Industry leaders have now signed the Antwerp Declaration. 

The Antwerp Declaration underlines the commitment of industry to Europe and its transformation and outlines urgent industry needs to make Europe competitive, resilient, and sustainable in the face of dire economic conditions.

“Basic industries in Europe are grappling with historical challenges: demand is declining, investments in the continent are stalling, production has dropped significantly, and sites are threatened. We want to drive the transformation of our companies. For this, we urgently need decisive action to create the conditions for a stronger business case in Europe. ‘The Antwerp Declaration’ outlines a pathway ahead. By placing the European Industrial Deal at the forefront of Europe’s strategic agenda, the EU would pave the way for a resilient, competitive, and sustainable Europe. This is the only way to show the rest of the world that the Green Deal works for all,” said the then Cefic President Martin Brudermüller. 

In a chapter titled "What is standing the way?, the report states that  it is evident that Europe is falling short of what we could achieve if we acted as a community. There are three barriers that are standing in EU industry's way.

First, Europe is lacking focus. We articulate common objectives, but we do not back them by setting clear priorities or following up with joined-up policy actions. For example, we claim to favour innovation, but we continue to add regulatory burdens onto European companies, which are especially costly for SMEs and self-defeating for those in the digital sectors. More than half of SMEs in Europe flag regulatory obstacles and the administrative burden as their greatest challenge, the report reads.

Second, Europe is wasting its common resources. “We have large collective spending power, but we dilute it across multiple different national and EU instruments. We do not collaborate enough on innovation, even though public investments in breakthrough technologies require large capital pools and the spillovers for everyone are substantial. The public sector in the EU spends about as much on R&I as the US as a share of GDP, but just one-tenth of this spending takes place at the EU level,” the report adds.

Third, Europe does not coordinate where it matters. “Industrial strategies today – as seen in the US and China – combine multiple policies, ranging from fiscal policies to encourage domestic production, to trade policies to penalise anti-competitive behaviour, to foreign economic policies to secure supply chains,” the report states.