Public expectations and EU policies – Industrial policy

A series of Briefings from the European Parliamentary Research Service which looks at EU actions in a series of policy areas. This follows up a public opinion survey organised by Eurobarometer for the European Parliament in April 2016 which asked the question: Would you like the EU to intervene less than at present or more than at present for the following policy areas?

Terrorism / Unemployment / Tax fraud / Migration / Borders / Democracy / Environment / Security and defence / Health / Gender equality / Energy / Economy / Foreign policy / Agriculture / Industrial policyIndustrial policy has recently attracted the attention of EU policy-makers seeking sources of economic growth. It is a key element of the Europe 2020 strategy, and the European Commission has set itself the target of increasing industry’s share of GDP to 20% by 2020. The policies and programmes contributing to the EU's industrial policy are significant (amounting to almost €200 billion), and the policy coverage is wide in scope.

On the other hand, it seems that European citizens still perceive industrial policy as predominantly national in character. The Commission is addressing the challenge of reindustrialisation of Europe with a number of horizontal tools such as the Investment Plan, the Digital Single Market Strategy and the Single Market Strategy.

Authors: Marcin Szczepański, Angelos Delivorias, Alina Dobreva