Recital 2

(2) The Union’s industry has proven its inbuilt resilience but its competitiveness must also be ensured in the future. High inflation, labour shortages, post-COVID supply chain disruptions, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, rising interest rates, and increases in energy costs and input prices are weighing on the competitiveness of the Union’s industry and have highlighted the importance for the Union to secure its open strategic autonomy and reduce its strategic dependence on third countries in various sectors. Those pressures on the Union’s industry are paired with strong, but not always fair, competition on the fragmented global market. The Union has already launched several initiatives to support its industry, such as the Green Deal Industrial Plan, set out in the Commission communication of 1 February 2023 entitled ‘A Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age’, a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (the ‘Critical Raw Materials Act’), a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (the ‘Net-Zero Industry Act’), the new Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework for State aid, set out in the Commission communication of 17 March 2023 entitled ‘Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework for State aid measures to support the economy following the aggression against Ukraine by Russia’, the European Union Recovery Instrument established by Council Regulation (EU) 2020/2094 (5) and Regulation (EU) 2023/435 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6). While those solutions provide fast, targeted and, in some cases, temporary support, the Union needs a more structural answer to the investment needs of its industries, safeguarding cohesion, creating quality jobs, and preserving the level playing field in the internal market, while facilitating access to funding. The Union should work to prevent relocation, to transfer production facilities of critical technologies back from third countries, and to attract new facilities to prevent strategic dependencies.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-13 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.