Ahead of the European Council, the President of Lithuania, together with the leaders of Ireland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Finland, stress that Europe needs a long-term competitiveness strategy to complement the Commission’s latest initiative of the Green Deal Industrial Plan. The letter underlines the importance of strengthening the Single Market, calls for the removal of remaining excessive barriers to the movement of goods, services, and private capital, and for the promotion of green and digital transition. It also highlights that the services sector should feature prominently in the updated strategy and that the potential of innovation technologies should be fully exploited to further boost growth.
Promoting competition, free movement on the Single Market, clean-tech industry and, above all, a comprehensive strategy are identified as the basis for future growth. “We are convinced that a comprehensive strategy based on our own strengths, deepening the Single Market, emphasizing better regulation across the board and reducing unnecessary regulatory burden, ensuring faster permitting and approval procedures, removing barriers to private capital flows, improving the EU investment climate, having a stronger focus on innovation and R&D and stakeholder-driven standards, acceleration of green and digital transition, ensuring data flows, implementing real-time economy solutions at EU level and fostering a skilled European workforce, while reducing our strategic dependencies, will put us in a better position to ensure our long-term competitiveness. The long-term strategy should be based on a needs analysis to have a better understanding of the impact of ongoing challenges and the strategic sectors that need our attention,“ the letter reads.
The heads of state of Lithuania, Ireland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Finland also highlight the need to push for a more ambitious trade policy, and to further cooperate with key partners to support the EU’s competitiveness, resilience and prosperity. “We should improve the conditions for investment, boost the technological and industrial base, and strengthen ecosystems that are key for the twin transition,” the leaders write, expressing the hope that the debate on this important issue will continue in the European Council.
