Despite their belief that European manufacturing industry has tremendous capacity for research and innovation, boasts a skilled workforce and has earned a global reputation for quality and sustainability, the 92 cosignatories to the declaration say Europe has lost 3.5million manufacturing jobs since 2008 and believe ‘the time has come to raise the alarm’.
They want the EU to ‘reaffirm’ its commitment to industry as a whole contributing 20% of Europe’s GDP and to adopt an action plan that tackles the challenges faced by the various industrial sectors. What’s needed, they add, is ‘an ambitious strategy’ to restore the sector’s fortunes.
Recently, ESCO – the Electronics and Electrical Systems Council – said the Green Paper was a ‘tremendous opportunity’, believing it to be an important process that will see the UK’s industrial policies and strategies upgraded.
The underlying problem is that governments in the UK and Europe have not had industry at the top of – perhaps even on – their agendas for years. The UK has been preferred to focus on the financial sector and only recently has the Government realised that, strangely enough, industry – making things – is also important.
Turning this ‘supertanker’ will take some time, but it has to be done.
