France and Germany announce three joint projects on hydrogen, cloud and microelectronics
On Tuesday, the French and German economy ministers announced three new projects of common European interest (PIIEC). The aim of the launch of these plans is to strengthen production capacities in Europe, as the pandemic has revealed the existing dependence on Asia.
The three projects, according to Bruno Le Maire and Peter Altmaier, are related to hydrogen, cloud computing and microelectronics; as made official through a joint press release.
They will be "partly" financed by the €750 billion "Next generation EU" European recovery plan, which in turn is financed by a joint loan.
Bruno Le Maire deplored the "excessive and unacceptable" dependence of European industry on Asian electronic components, in a context where the global semiconductor crisis is closing many car factories.
"Our dependence on Asia for electronic components is excessive and unacceptable, it makes us vulnerable and weakens our production chains," Le Maire lamented from Paris. Referring to the stoppages suffered since January by some Volkswagen and Mercedes plants in Germany or Seat and Ford in Spain, he said that "today there are tens of thousands of vehicles that are not being produced because of a lack of electronic components. We are talking about thousands of lost working hours of our workers and our industries".
The announcement comes amid a global shortage of electronic components for the automotive industry, illustrating once again "the need for an ambitious IIPEC to strengthen Europe's production capacities".
"We want to be a sovereign, industrially powerful, technologically independent continent," Le Maire stressed.
Altmaier added that "the time has come to implement all industrial policy changes: those to actively engage in the green and digital transition, those to implement the lessons learned from COVID-19, those for pan-European cooperation on innovative technologies and those that trigger very large-scale private investments". Meanwhile, the announced update of the industrial strategy is welcomed and important measures are proposed.
Reference was also made to a joint contribution to the review of Europe's industrial strategy presented in March last year. However, the Commission will have to carry out an update soon to take into account the new post-pandemic situation.
According to this contribution, "more ambitious initiatives are needed to achieve the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030". They also reaffirm their support for the introduction of a carbon tax at the borders of the European Union.
