Frankfurt am Main – Ahead of this Thursday’s EU summit on competitiveness in Belgium, IG Metall is pushing for strong local content rules in Europe. The union criticizes the German government’s hesitant stance on this issue and the knee-jerk defensive reactions of several German industry and business associations as a naive denial of reality.
“Local content is the logical response to a world in which tariffs, subsidies, and unfair trade practices dominate the global economy and destroy jobs here every day. Anyone who does not take this new reality seriously in all its harshness is either very poorly informed or ideologically stubborn,” said Jürgen Kerner, Second Chairman of IG Metall, referring to statements from the Ministry of Economics and several associations. Ahead of tomorrow’s EU summit, their representatives had taken a critical stance toward an initiative by EU Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, who aims to strengthen value creation in Europe through clear guidelines.
Kerner accuses the skeptics of denying reality: “We no longer live in the ’90s. As European economies, we have two options: We can slowly die in ordoliberal splendor and abandon our industrial base, or we can finally adopt the right tools to meet the challenges of the 2020s—and that means strengthening and promoting value creation and jobs in Europe with effective regulations.”
The European Commission is currently working, under the leadership of Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, on the so-called Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), an EU regulation aimed at modernizing and decarbonizing European industry more quickly and strengthening its position in global competition. A draft that has been leaked in advance calls for far-reaching local-content requirements. Séjourné himself promoted his approach last week in an op-ed published in 17 European newspapers: Whenever European public funds are used, he argued, they must contribute to European production and high-quality jobs. The EU must also apply this logic to foreign direct investment.
IG Metall was one of the very first voices to call for local-content requirements more than two years ago. The union therefore expressly supports Séjourné’s initiative. Support is now also coming from the business community: Over a thousand business representatives, including CEOs from Germany, have signed the Industry Commissioner’s appeal. The German federal government and key German industry associations, however, remain on the defensive.
Jürgen Kerner emphasizes: “The federal government, too, must finally abandon its hesitant stance and decisively support and actively advance Commissioner Séjourné’s initiative in Brussels. A consistent ‘Made in Europe’ strategy with clear local content requirements is long overdue. Linking public funding to production within the EU is a logical and necessary step toward establishing a level playing field. Only in this way will we strengthen our industrial base, secure value creation in Europe, preserve good, collectively bargained jobs, and create new ones for the future.”
