Today, the European Commission published the Industrial Action Plan for the automotive sector. The Plan promises innovation, but seems to deliver little hope for the automotive workforce. More investment is needed to fulfil the ambitions of the Plan.
Developed over the last month, after the launch of the Automotive Strategic Dialogue on 30 January, the European Commission published its Industrial Action Plan for the European automotive sector on 5 March.
The plan covers five key areas:
- Innovation and digitalisation
- Clean mobility
- Competitiveness and supply chain resilience
- Skills and social dimension
- Level playing field and business environment
The Plan includes a series of interesting initiatives to boost infrastructure and domestic demand while ensuring co-benefits for the European automotive industry. Its success will depend on the speed of political action and coordination between Member States.
The chapter dealing with the social dimension is essentially made of a new “observatory” and a targeted amendment to the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) Regulation. The creation of a Fair Transition Observatory was already announced in the Clean Industrial Deal (CID) last week; its mandate duplicates the European Commission’s obligations in the existing legislation setting CO2 standards for cars (i.e. the foreseen 2025 “progress report”). The proposal in the EGF needs to be developed further, to ensure that this instrument can become a real tool for anticipation and worker protection.
Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, says: “Given the wave of job losses in the European automotive industry last year, workers had high expectations of this initiative, but these haven’t yet been met. As the Commission will lift the fiscal straitjacket for the defence sector, it is appalling that so little investment is foreseen for this strategic industry in Europe. Despite the mounting evidence that shows the importance of social dialogue and collective bargaining in anticipating and managing structural change in a socially fair way, the Plan falls short of any significant initiatives to acknowledge this.
“In the Clean Industrial Deal, the Commission stated the importance of social conditionalities to ensure good jobs and a return on public investment and contracts. We expect the “non price criteria” mentioned in the automotive plan to build on this and ensure that public support underpins quality work and collective bargaining”, added Judith Kirton-Darling.
The Plan rightly emphasises the importance of the circular economy and the supply chain diversification in securing raw materials supplies. However, despite evidence of human rights violations and conflicts related to the global extractive industries, the Plan completely overlooks the importance of securing human rights due diligence obligations along the supply chain.
IndustriAll Europe takes note of the additional flexibility provided to OEMs’ car manufacturers to reach the 2025 CO2 emission reduction target.
Judith Kirton-Darling emphasises that: “Flexibility needs to come hand in hand with investment in European plants, job safeguard commitments, and up- and reskilling of the workforce. Workers and communities should benefit from these regulatory adjustments, not only shareholders.”
The lack of a clear link with a broader Clean and Affordable Mobility Strategy is a missed opportunity to ensure complementarity and synergies between EU policies to deal with crucial questions, such as modal shift and infrastructure planning, or the decarbonisation of the existing fleet.
Boosting domestic demand requires a decent job agenda that promotes collective bargaining as well as a macro-economic governance, allowing Member States to deliver the public investments fit for the transition we are currently in.