In response to the enduring COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union (EU) needs to reorient its actions beyond the areas originally identified as key priorities. In particular, the need to ensure greater resilience has now become the top priority for EU institutions, with several consequences for EU industrial policy. While EU policy aimed for ‘competitive sustainability’ before the pandemic, the post-pandemic recovery is aiming to achieve both resilience and sustainability, which in turn requires bolder action on all fronts
Faced with the prospect of a long-lasting and traumatic pandemic, CEPS has decided to step up its efforts to support the work of EU institutions in the development of an industrial strategy fit for a brighter future. Officially launched on 26 November 2020, the Task Force ‘Towards a resilient and sustainable post-pandemic recovery’ created eight working groups, tasked with exploring policy recommendations. Between mid-January and mid-March 2021, CEPS hosted 24 working group meetings (three per working group), plus a number of side events related to trade and the issue of indicators for monitoring progress in the EU industrial strategy. Several stakeholders joined the meetings and due attention was paid to ensuring balance in the debate, with invited external speakers that numbered academics, NGOs and policymakers, including several European Commission representatives from a variety of Directorate Generals.
This report contains the main findings of those meetings presenting the general recommendations that emerged from the plenary meeting in November 2020, and from the discussions in the various working groups, as well as the main recommendations from each of the working groups. This is an executive summary of findings.