In her Special Address at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Von der Leyen highlighted the need for Europe to "shift gears" given this era of "harsh geostrategic competition"; a need that has intensified given recent events. In the following weeks, the European Commission presented its action plan for the next five years—the EU Competitiveness Compass—and the 2025 Work Programme, defining an ambitious roadmap with a very tight timetable.
The compass, that builds on Mario Draghi´s report on the future of European competitiveness, identifies three necessities for the EU to boost its competitiveness and five horizontal enablers.
| THREE NECESSITIES |
| Closing the innovation gap: - creating a friendly environment for young companies to start and expand, with a dedicated EU start-up and scale-up strategy
- helping big companies adopt new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, thanks to an “Apply AI” initiative
- making it easier for companies to operate across the EU by simplifying rules and laws, with a proposal for a “28th legal regime” to apply to innovative start-ups and scale-ups and that will guarantee one set of corporate, insolvency, tax and employment rules across the EU.
- supporting the development of new technologies, with action plans for quantum, advanced materials, biotech, robotics and space technologies
| Decarbonizing the economy: - putting forward the Clean Industrial Deal, to help reduce carbon emissions, especially for energy intensive companies, and facilitate their transition to low carbon technologies
- presenting tailor-made action plans for energy intensive sectors, which are the most vulnerable at this phase of the transition
- developing an affordable energy action plan to help bring down energy prices and costs
| Reducing dependencies: - developing a new range of clean trade and investment partnerships to help secure supply of raw materials, clean energy, sustainable transport fuels, and clean tech from across the world
- reviewing the public procurement rules to allow for the introduction of a European preference in public procurement for critical sectors and technologies
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| Five Enablers: - Cutting red tape: Omnibus proposals simplifying the EU sustainability reporting obligations.
- Removing barriers in the single market: creating a horizontal single market strategy.
- Enabling more efficient financing: with the work of the savings and investment union.
- Promoting skills and quality jobs with the Union of skills.
- Ensuring better coordination amongst Member States.
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Europe´s strategy for the next five years will greatly impact regulation both at European and national levels and consequently the finance and business worlds. Because of this, we have decided to create a collection of our publications relevant and related to the EU competitive strategy. Not all the EU initiatives will be relevant for our scope, our focus will mainly reflect our clients’ needs and demands and might change over time. For the time being, we will be focusing on changes impacting (in alphabetical order) capital markets, defense, energy, finance, sustainability, and venture capital.
