The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, opened a strategic dialogue with the automotive industry on Thursday in an effort to work together to face its most critical challenges and ensure the sector’s future as a pillar of European industry.
The sector is undergoing a transformative phase with new challenges. The European leaders hope to be involved in helping the sector, and for this reason, they launched this strategic dialogue with industry leaders and other stakeholders. Volkswagen, Renault, BMW and Volvo were among the 22 participants in the inaugural talk with von der Leyen.
“The fundamental question we need to answer together is what we still miss to unleash the innovative power of our companies and ensure a robust and sustainable automotive sector,” said von der Leyen during the meeting.
The Commission plans to follow up on the strategic plan with a comprehensive action plan, which will be released on 5 March. The action plan will start with the discussion on Thursday and will include a public consultation from all interested parties. In addition, the Commission ruled that four thematic work groups will focus on key topics. The work groups are headed by four Commissioners, namely Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra on clean transition, Vice-President for Industrial Strategy Stéphane Séjourné on industrial value chain, Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen on technological innovation and Vice-President on social rights Roxana Mînzatu on social impact. The action plan will then be put together and presented by Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
Tzitzikostas was also present at the start of the strategic dialogue and commented that “the European automotive industry is a key pillar of the European economy. The sector is now in the middle of deep structural shifts. I am very happy that we started the dialogue with the key stakeholders today.”
