Berlin, 10. March 2020 – The European Commission has published its industrial strategy. Bitkom’s president Achim Berg comments:
“In times of trade disputes and geopolitical conflict, Europe has to leverage its own positions on the economy and industrial policy in order to remain competitive, to develop technological capacities and reduce dependencies. At the same time, free trade and international partnerships have to be strengthened and actively advocated for internationally. In the digital age, good industrial policy equals good digital policy. The EU’s industrial strategy is going in the right direction because the strategy underlines the paramount importance of data for developing digital technologies and rids itself of the artificial separation between the analogue and the digital economy. Instead of a digital single market, we need a digitalised single market.
The importance of digital industrial platforms is not emphasised enough, which is a particular problem for industry in Germany with regard to uptake, and should be placed more prominently. The EU’s industry strategy is linked to a number of other strategies, action plans and communications. The European Commission needs to make sure that all these initiatives are interlinked without creating irregularities and fragmentation and to set the right priorities in order to create synergies."
