The objective is to multiply the manufacture of semiconductors, key to numerous essential industries such as the automobile or electronics sector
The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic two years ago has put many European industrial sectors in check, which have been forced to paralyze their production due to the lack of such a key component in the manufacture of digital devices, such as electronic devices. semiconductors, used in all kinds of electronic devices. To prevent this dependency from taking its toll in the future and paralyzing such strategic sectors in the Old Continent as the automobile industry, the European Comission has approved this Tuesday a legislative proposal which includes measures to guarantee security of supply, resilience and technological leadership with a central objective: to multiply European production and that the 20% of chips of all the world be manufactured in the EU by 2030.
Currently, less than 10% of the semiconductors produced worldwide are manufactured in the European Union when less than four decades ago the percentage reached 40%. In the last forty years, Europe has lost ground with respect to the United States, where this type of component is designed, and especially Asia, which produces 80% with Taiwan as the main supplier. A situation that generates absolute dependence, as the pandemic has shown, which has forced the factory closures in many sectors already paralyze manufacturing lines due to the scarcity of this component. For example, in some Member States production in the automotive sector fell by a third in 2021.
To avoid a repetition of this scenario, deal with this systemic problem and gain autonomy, Brussels has designed a plan that aspires to mobilize 43,000 million euros in public and private financing. To the 30,000 million in investments already planned in the European budget, which will be used to increase production, including the construction of mega-factories, 15,000 million will be added in additional public and private investments, of which some 11,000 million will be to promote research. The idea, says the European Commission, is to use this funding to put in place measures to prevent, prepare for, anticipate and respond quickly to any future disruption to supply chains.
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“The European chip law will change the rules of the game. In the short term, it will increase our resilience to future crises by allowing us to anticipate and avoid supply chain disruptions. And in the medium term, it will contribute to turning Europe into an industrial leader in this strategic branch & rdquor ;, explained the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on one of the proposals promised in the last debate on the state of the union. In the long term, meanwhile, the idea is to promote technological leadership and place Europe as a technological leader in innovative markets.” Europe is the continent where all the revolutions have begun and it can be the origin of the next revolution too & rdquor ;, predicts the German about one of the industrial laws, in the opinion of Commissioner Thierry Macron, “the most important in recent years”.
In its proposal, Brussels encourages the Member States to begin to redouble coordination to anticipate possible disturbances in the markets and adopt corrective measures while the approval of the regulation is processed, which will be automatically applied as soon as the European Parliament and the Council give the green light to the proposal.