Debate contributions by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ

Madam President, I shall be very brief, given the timetable for the end of our debates. However, I would point out one point: the broad support already given to the InvestEU scheme through the political groups you represent. I look forward to that. Again, we will also have these debates in the budget debate. InvestEU is part of the investment toolbox. Once again, we will work with the EIB and our partners to make strategic use of this enhanced investment capacity that you have given us. Our goal is clear, you have understood it: maximise the effect of each euro invested. Once again, at a time when public money is difficult, when we also have to be accountable to our European voters and citizens, this mechanism makes it possible to have leverage on guarantees and on the private sector, which is strong, and also to have a number of elements that guarantee projects that would not be viable in the private sector or guaranteed by private banks. So yes, I do not know many public guarantee projects that come on public investments. We take on private investment in this context, especially at a time when our competitiveness is at stake. We must invest in innovation, in decarbonisation, in new technologies. This will be the aim of the extra money in this scheme, which is almost unanimous here, in the light of the statements made by the political groups.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, in organising this debate, you wished to stress the importance of Omnibus II, which will take place tomorrow with a vote. I would also like to thank you for this organised debate and, in particular, to commend the work of our two rapporteurs and to congratulate you collectively on this result, because this omnibus is the first to arrive safely, and I hope that the others will follow with the same speed and perhaps the same spirit of understanding of the political forces that prevailed during our trilogues. This omnibus is important for equipping Europe with the means to serve our objectives. It is essential at a time when our budget is constrained and the next financial framework, alas, still far away. For this reason, the Commission had proposed to maximise the effectiveness of the InvestEU guarantee. This creates new policy and investment space with a number of priorities: succeeding in the energy transition, accelerating digital transformation, supporting growth and strategic technology. More than ever, it is essential to make the best use of public money to raise additional funding, especially in the private sector. The objective of InvestEU is to optimize this guarantee and to allow, especially in the private sector, to have additional money. You have rightly worked to ensure that new priorities are included in InvestEU's funding priorities such as housing. You also pointed out that this instrument is essential for supporting SMEs and, above all, you have snatched up, I must say, additional resources. They will arrive for the guarantee and for the advisory activities of the InvestEU hub. Thanks to your determination, for this multiplier instrument, we will be able to mobilise an additional strike force of around EUR 55 billion. Of course, these new measures also reflect a strong desire for simplification, by reducing administrative burdens, streamlining procedures and speeding up project implementation. These efforts will allow our companies, but also the EIB and public investment banks to focus on their primary vocation, I am thinking in particular of innovation, investing, developing and creating value. This win-win agreement gives more resources to services and our simplification objectives so that partners and users can use this instrument, which has economic value for projects that must be de-risked. Here we also have, as you know, a mechanism that is part of the competitiveness fund, which will be part of this toolbox, this instrument. I also hope that the parliamentarians who fought hard for this mechanism in these trilogues will be able to do so also in the framework of the competitiveness fund in the coming weeks and in the parliamentary debate. We will need it at a time when public money is increasingly scarce and we have more and more projects to invest in and to derisk. In any case, I will be at your side to work and make this project a success in the service of innovation and European competitiveness.

Madam President, I may start by saying that the European Union is neither in an agenda of decoupling from China, nor in an agenda that would add to us a number of new dependencies. And so, if I withdraw the speeches that seemed extremist to me on one side or the other – whether it is in 100% decoupling, which is also the American agenda in a way, or when I hear Mme Montero, who can apply for a Chinese passport after this vibrant pro-China speech that would add new dependencies – I think I can consider that there is a majority in this Chamber in favour of defending the European interest, substantially reducing our dependencies, organising our value chains and protecting our businesses. We will operate, and we will act with, four objectives. Firstly, to coordinate our European organisation so that in the event of shortages we do not compete with each other. We have already experienced this during certain crises and export or import shortages, especially during COVID. The European rare earths market design is necessary to avoid individual strategies or supply chain disruptions, as well as border closures between Member States. Secondly, to increase production in Europe. There, it is a question of funding, organization and speed. A new call for applications for strategic projects has been announced by the European Commission. It will be closed on 15 January and we will probably have to announce a number of additional projects to be able to free up in Europe new capacities in the field of rare earths and critical raw materials, which are necessary for our European industry. Thirdly, internationalize and diversify so as not to be 100% dependent on a single country. I was in South Africa to sign a memorandum of understanding with the South African authorities. I will also go to Latin America to do the same. We also have a partnership with Australia. They are partners, again, who are reliable, who have a democratic model that corresponds to our companies, with a rule of law where their rights are respected, with competent courts, and we can much more easily and much more confidently forge links in the supply chains between European industry and these trusted partners. Fourthly, this was mentioned in each other's interventions, developing circularity. Far too many raw materials hardly enter European territory, as we have just said, but too many easily leave European territory once consumed and are then recycled outside and returned to European territory. Here too, we need to build axes of circularity, to build industries that can recycle these raw materials to prevent them from leaving Europe. A final point: It is innovation and our ability to do without rare earths, to do without a number of critical materials. I believe that substitution must also be a European strategy. There we have tools, Horizon, and also a tool to be able to invest in research and development. The best rare land is the one we don't use, in a way. When I look at the figures for dependence on these rare earths, today our strategy for research and development on the substitution of these materials must also be a real European strategy in the future. Here, we will have the opportunity, obviously, after the announcements of the Commission, to exchange on RESourceEU. You understand, what we did on Russian gas, what we did during COVID, we have to do on critical raw materials. We need to join forces. I retain from this discussion that there is a large majority, in all groups, to be able to support a pragmatic approach that defends the interests of Europeans with less naivety. To refine this plan, I hope your support. I thank Parliament and all the speakers for this very encouraging discussion. For the rest, we will have the opportunity to discuss all the proposals that the European Commission will make from 3 December.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Minister, on behalf of the European Commission, I would first like to thank you for putting this item and this debate on the agenda. It is essential at a time when Europe's economic security is being tested. Let's go back to the context first. What happened last April and October on rare earths is not new. Europe experienced the first signs of Chinese restrictions on gallium and germanium as early as 2023. And it is a safe bet that this tension on raw materials will only last, given recent developments. We have seen that export licences are already restricted. It is also a safe bet that Europe is not only the collateral victim of geopolitical blackmail between the United States and China. We are also directly targeted. The more we defend our independence agenda, the greater the pressure on our value chains. Finally, it is certain that today this situation is alarming. This is evidenced by the fact that export licences are granted on a dropper basis, that deliveries are lagging behind, so that entire industrial sectors in Europe are also under pressure. I am thinking in particular of the automotive sector and energy, under the threat of supply disruptions. Other sectors are also simply excluded. This is the case with the defence. Increasingly, licences are being granted at the price of information that is often – and worryingly – covered by industrial secrecy. These requirements are akin to a racket, if we take all the requests that are made to our manufacturers to obtain these export licenses. In view of this situation, I would like to underline and welcome the diplomatic efforts of Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, which have made it possible to suspend some of the restrictions and, in particular, to speed up the processing of the licences that were blocked for our European industrialists. So we have a 12-month reprieve, an agreement between the United States and China, but I'm not sure we have 12 months in that period. This advance is only partial, probably very temporary, and it is time for Europe to strengthen its game, to redouble its efforts, that is to say, vis-à-vis China, to reduce dependencies. For this – as the European Parliament is well aware – the European Union already has a solid legislative basis, including the Critical Raw Materials Act. It clearly sets out the European ambition, with specific objectives in terms of domestic production and international diversification. Since the beginning of the mandate, we have also been putting in place the means to achieve the objectives that the co-legislators have set. We now have 60 strategic projects: 47 in Europe, 13 abroad. A new set of projects will be announced in mid-January. Lithium, copper, extraction, recycling within the European Union are moving forward. These are projects for which our European response is strong and for which our dependencies are shrinking more and more. They therefore require unwavering support from national, local authorities and the private sector. We have also multiplied our partnerships abroad, since the reduction of our dependencies also requires new diversifications so that our supplies are not 100% Chinese. I am thinking in particular of Ukraine, Norway, Australia, Canada or other countries. In South Africa, this week, we signed a memorandum of understanding, and with the authorities of that country we have launched new cooperation on specific projects, on specific technologies and on production sites that will also allow us to reduce our dependencies. I can assure you that there is a real desire on the part of other international partners to work with Europe, especially since Europe takes a very different approach from its competitors. It is not simply a question of extracting local resources, but, on the contrary, it is also a question of producing, processing and refining local resources in order to maximize the benefits for local economies. These are therefore win-win agreements that are being developed by Europe, on which we must rely in order to be competitive in this sector as well. It is about integrating our value chains with perspectives and states that respect our values, that is to say also our social and environmental standards, democracies where the law is applied, both for our companies that will source there and for theirs, which are also in a situation where the rule of law is respected, both in Europe and among our partners. Europe has values. In this international context, it puts the means to be able to participate and maintain important relations with its partners to precisely reduce its dependencies. Europe also played its role as a whistleblower at the G20 this week, as the issue of critical raw materials was one of the topics we collectively addressed in our value chains, with an important commitment: more diversification and more cooperation. All this only reinforces our conviction: Critical raw materials are a test and will probably be the test of the mandate – with heavy supply risks, but also geopolitical and industrial risks for Europeans. In this context, as you know, we are working in three directions for the December announcements. The first is to speed up integration and coordination within the internal market to avoid fragmentation in the event of a shortage of raw materials. This is clearly one of the legacies of the crises we have experienced in recent years, especially with COVID. Secondly, we need to speed up production and recycling in Europe, which means higher funding for our strategic projects. It also means mobilising trade instruments to keep raw materials, help reduce our dependencies and structure new partnerships with other countries. Finally, it is a matter of accelerating diversification. It also means having reliable partners, as I told you, who respect the rule of law and who are able to contribute to our independence or, at least, to our autonomy on the 17 critical raw materials that are targeted in European law. We are also working on a European Critical Raw Materials Centre. It will be the cockpit, in a way, of European supply, on the model of the Japanese JOGMEC. It must also allow us to assess needs, to buy together, to store critical minerals in Europe. All this only works if European companies also play the game and integrate the issue of economic security, their lines and their supplies into their working dynamics. In a nutshell, it only works if our European companies stop buying 100% Chinese on raw materials. We have a collective responsibility, between European institutions and local and national authorities. The cost of independence is high, but it is lower than that of dependency. All this pushes us to speed things up. It's not too late, but time is running out. Our competitors are also moving up a gear on diversifying the supply of raw materials and domestic exploitation. I hope to be able to count on your support, on the support of the European Parliament, to be able to accelerate in view of the construction and the announcements concerning RESourceEU which, as you have understood, will allow us to accelerate our movement.

A new legislative framework adapted to the challenges of our time is perhaps the red thread that you all mentioned in this debate. Mr López Aguilar, all the Commissioners of the European Commission are working together, including with Commissioner McGrath, on this subject, so that we can also provide a coherent framework. I would also point out that we share a number of objectives in this Chamber and in the European Commission: sustainability of digitalisation, greater consistency in the application of assessment and conformity procedures and more effective application of our rules. I am putting aside the subject of control, which is obviously an important subject and which perhaps also determines the application of these rules, and we will have a whole debate. I hope that the debate on customs, the new regulatory framework on which we are currently working in trilogue with a number of parliamentarians, and the Council, can be concluded as soon as possible. A proposal has been made in this direction and must also complement our legislative framework in order to be able to give some form of effectiveness to the new rules that will be found. Rest assured that the Commission is taking your recommendations fully into account as we prepare this future regulatory framework for products. Thanks again to rapporteur David Cormand for his analysis, expertise and recommendations; Thank you also to all the parliamentarians who worked on these compromises in IMCO. This is a new page of European product legislation that we are writing collectively. Know that you can count on the full involvement of the Commission in the coming weeks.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the European Commission, I would first of all like to commend the work of rapporteur Cormand and, more broadly, of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. This own-initiative report comes at a very opportune time in our discussions, including in the current situation. It has been more than 15 years since the new product legislative framework entered into force and over time it has established itself as a cornerstone of the internal market, as the guarantor of the safety and conformity of products circulating within the European Union. That said, in the face of the new realities facing the internal market - and, Mr rapporteur, you have mentioned a number of these realities - it is clear that this framework must evolve. In this respect, the European Commission fully shares the positions of the European Parliament in this report. You know these new realities: digitalisation, e-commerce, fast fashion, including the e- and circular economy as well, which will need to be developed. These are phenomena sometimes desired by the legislator – we have transformations to make – or suffered. They have profoundly transformed our relationship with products, both in terms of their design and the uses we make of them. These changes pose many challenges for the European Union. We must also be able to tackle a number of legislative initiatives, and I am thinking in particular of consumer safety, the competitiveness of our businesses and the integrity of the internal market. The European Commission therefore proposes to revise the three main pillars of European product legislation, the new legislative framework, market surveillance and the standardisation system. Our ambition is to carry out these revisions in parallel, with the aim, of course, of presenting a package within a year in order to create a coherent regulatory framework for products. This package will take the form of an act for European products, both to facilitate placing on the market and to increase compliance. Concretely, our ambition is clearly based on three main objectives: Revise our standardization rules, you understand, to make the system more agile, faster, more balanced as well. To ensure that our marketing rules are also adapted to new business models and can also respond to counterfeits. Thirdly, to strengthen our market surveillance rules in order to protect our internal market from unfair practices and to prevent any products that do not comply with our rules from entering the European market. Of course, the Commission will rely on the analysis of the recommendations made by this report and by the European Parliament. I am thinking in particular of those aimed at ensuring the consistency and traceability and durability of products. Mr MEP, you mentioned this, and therefore, on behalf of the European Commission, I would once again like to welcome this work. This week's vote will also send a positive message, a strong political signal in favour of an internal market for products that is both reliable and resilient in the face of the challenges of tomorrow.

Madam President, allow me first of all to return to a number of very relevant arguments and comments that have been made in this debate. I would like to address the conditions under which we need to strengthen the internal market, and then the two major projects that I mentioned in the introduction. The key condition, if we want to strengthen the internal market, is to protect our external borders. It is this balance that we must find collectively. Protection and conditions for entry into the internal market need to be determined, strengthened and strengthened. This is the subject of the text you voted on in the previous parliamentary term and which is currently on the Council's table. I am thinking of the organisation of our customs at European level, the controls at our ports and airports, and our ability to ensure that European companies can produce under conditions similar to those of imported products arriving on our market. This is the fundamental element that will enable us to convince the sceptics of the internal market and a decisive condition for moving forward. The second element concerns construction sites. I mentioned two of them. The first is at the national level. You all pointed it out: the Terrible 10's, a number of barriers, which we ourselves have identified in the Commission, have been identified. The result is a document which lists all the barriers within the internal market for each Member State. (The speaker shows a document) You can see that there is red for everyone, including friends of the internal market. This means that many countries have to do their homework. We must accompany them in this task, which must be conducted barrier by barrier, to eliminate all the red from this picture. As members who have spoken have pointed out, these barriers are tariffs or tariff equivalents. A red box is a cost to a company, the cost of doing business in another country. This has a direct impact on small and medium-sized enterprises, which are our new industrial fabric and our ability to create growth. This is the first project, and I will propose to the Council a method for following this pattern at ministerial level in order to move forward gradually, but very concretely. The second project is European. As I said, the President of the Commission has made commitments, starting with a commitment of responsibility. We have set the 2028 deadline to open a number of sectors that are now national: capital markets, services, energy, telecommunications and the 28th regime. These are areas for which the Commission is responsible for proposing legislation. We have made a commitment to undertake these reforms before 2028, before the end of our mandate. What I am also proposing to the European Parliament and the Council is to conclude an interinstitutional agreement on this issue, in particular on the 2028 deadline, in order to share the responsibilities for achieving our objectives and covering these areas before the end of the parliamentary term. As you have all said, this is not just a matter for the Commission; a strong commitment from all institutions is needed. The European Parliament must allow us to move forward quickly; the Council, to remove the internal barriers in practice and to make progress on the issues I have just mentioned. For my part, I undertake to present this roadmap to you before submitting it to the Council, so that we can gather your views, your recommendations, and modify a number of criteria. This will enable the European Parliament to play its full role as a spur. I know I can count on this institution, since there is consensus on this subject. We must now convince beyond this assembly.

Madam President, Minister, on behalf of the European Commission, I am pleased to speak again in this debate on our single market and the measures that need to be taken to strengthen it. At the last plenary session, we had already addressed these issues in connection with Anna-Maja Henriksson's excellent report. Moreover, the points of convergence between your report and this strategy on the single market were already numerous. Since then, in her State of the Union address, the President of the Commission has announced an initiative, a roadmap to complete the single market. It will cover six specific areas. It is on this subject and probably especially on the method to be used that I would like to devote my intervention today. We are living in a time of economic uncertainty, trade and geopolitical tension. However, the single market offers both a bulwark of protection and a lever for growth that remains clearly underexploited, because too many obstacles are holding back our European market. The imperative to make a qualitative leap probably calls for two types of actions. If I want to summarise our method, it is firstly to undertake major projects at European level, which is the meaning of the roadmap announced by the President of the Commission – I will come back to this – and secondly to demonstrate daily commitment at national level – this is the objective of the strategy presented on 21 May – and to follow up on what we called the Terrible 10s. My services are in the process of preparing a scoreboard that reviews the situation for each of the barriers in each of the countries of the European Union. Taken one by one, these barriers can sometimes seem totally anecdotal and their impact totally limited on growth. This is the case, for example, with national labelling rules which are based on a good intention to promote a national product often, but which oblige companies to adapt to each of the national and international markets, which has an economic impact on our market. This is also the case for recycling when, for example, each State adopts a different or even divergent definition of waste. This is still the case when states, concerned for good reasons about the abuse of European rules, impose additional reporting obligations on posted work, for example. Accumulation over accumulation. The accumulation of all these measures constrains the internal market and there are many of them. There are several hundred barriers to entry. So we need everyone's commitment: the Commission to monitor, prevent and launch infringement procedures as soon as necessary; the European Parliament and the Member States to avoid measures that further fragment the internal market. And within this framework, we will propose initiatives, including so that everyone can be engaged with the ambition and goal of reducing these national barriers. Let us come to the major European projects. In her State of the Union address, as I said in the introduction, the President of the Commission announced an internal market roadmap for 2028. I say 2028, since the Commission's responsibility is to finish this work by 2028, and it is a form of responsibility to have put this date before the end of our mandate. This empowers the Commission and collectively gives us the responsibility to deliver on the themes that the President has raised: capital, services, energy, telecommunications, the 28th regime, and the 5th freedom of knowledge and innovation. Texts and proposals to strengthen our internal market. These are sectors where the market remains national and not European. This is a challenge and a responsibility of the Commission. To tackle it is to reconnect with the ambition and momentum of Jacques Delors. This level of ambition requires a strong, unprecedented political commitment, and I therefore call on all of us to define together – Parliament, Council, Commission – objectives and the vehicles to achieve them. Let everyone then take responsibility. The Commission to present proposals within an agreed timeframe, the co-legislator to address them as soon as possible, and then follow up these initiatives together and act to remove unjustified national barriers. It is therefore a proposal that I make to you: Let us build this integrated internal market, which you all want, together. Let us take the commitment at the highest level of our respective institutions, with an institutional agreement, why not in the form of an inter-institutional declaration, to create ownership and real political momentum.

Mr President, I will come back to the figures, since many have been stated. EUR 2 565 billion is the figure resulting from the 2003 public contracts. Of these 2,565 billion euros, 600 billion are within the European thresholds. It is therefore the responsibility of parliamentarians to assess, including whether these European thresholds are the right ones, whether more public procurement should be included in the European thresholds. But you are right, 600 billion euros a year is about three times the budget of the European Union, which is about 190 billion euros if we smooth out all the budget years. And so, yes, public procurement is strategic because the European public procurement strategy, if it is well-constructed, if it is legible, if it follows the recommendations we all want - transparency to avoid corruption, thresholds to allow social, environmental clauses and a form of European preference over a number of strategic sectors - could allow us to move forward with an amount that somehow replicates the European budget. All this to tell you that the review process is important. It is now well under way since, in the coming weeks, the Commission will publish its evaluation report on the current framework. This evaluation will be followed by a public consultation on the impact assessment. This will allow all stakeholders to contribute very concretely to the policy debate on this public procurement debate, and the full impact assessment will then be published, prepared for a legislative proposal. We have also heard calls for a tighter timetable. Throughout the process, the work of Parliament's recommendations that I have mentioned, all the legislative work that has already been carried out by this Chamber, as well as the local elected representatives, will be fully taken into account and will also provide very valuable guidance for our proposals, I undertake to do so. And the direction of the conclusions will also be taken into account in these conclusions. The objective is clear: make public procurement a strategic tool, as I told you, for competitiveness, but also for resilience. Our idea is, of course, to maximise the value of the EUR 600 billion covered by European rules, to the benefit of our fellow citizens, European sovereignty and our industry. You can count on the European Commission to make this review a success and an asset for the future of Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to commend the work done by the IMCO, INTA and EMPL Committees on this subject. I know that the many and sometimes complex discussions surrounding this own-initiative report also reflect the importance of the subject we are going to deal with collectively. The revision of a 2014 directive has a very clear objective: make public procurement a strategic lever in its own right, in an uncertain geopolitical context. More than €600 billion are covered by public procurement law every year. This is equivalent to almost three times the annual budget of the European Union. It is therefore essential to integrate public procurement into our investment strategy in a coherent way. But, to activate this lever, it is necessary to the support of local authorities. They must be careful, they must want and they must be able to apply it. As you know, and I will start with this, the current legal framework is complex, fragmented and, at this stage, leads to difficulties of interpretation. Moreover, this framework remains essentially governed by the lowest price criterion. The price must obviously remain in the equation, it is also the management of taxpayers' money and public money, but our political choices must not be made at the expense of quality or a longer-term vision. Finally, public procurement also needs to be modernised. That is also the Commission's conviction. This work starts with a simplification effort, making the most of the potential of digital tools, also putting more agility, more flexibility in all public procurement procedures. However, this agility must not make us give up transparency. Importantly, there is fair competition between service offerings. In addition, we must promote an approach that integrates criteria such as quality, but also innovation, sustainability and the social issue. When it comes to competitiveness and resilience, the idea of introducing a European preference also comes to mind very quickly. At a time when global geopolitics is in turmoil, the promotion of European strategic interests is of existential importance to us. In a way, we need a European public procurement strategy, which we are missing at this stage. There is also a need to ensure that European technologies and products in specific – most strategic – sectors are not relegated to second place. They must also be valued in these offers. European preference for the Commission does not mean national favouritism. The whole challenge of this reform, as you have understood, is to bring about a real internal market for offers and calls for tenders, with a real competitive bidding process allowing European participants and players to make strategic public purchases. This vision must represent a real paradigm shift for us. We must rise to the challenges, particularly geopolitical, that we are experiencing. I know that we can count on the European Parliament to work in this direction.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as the Commission adopts a series of key measures for the European chemicals sector, I thank you for choosing to organise this debate, as chemistry is the mother of all industries. It is present everywhere, in all strategic and industrial sectors, from our military defence to our medicines and connected objects, which have become ubiquitous in our daily lives. However, it is also an industry that is not doing well. Let us start by listing a number of figures that reposition the industrial challenge we are experiencing. Chemistry has seen a drop of almost 50% in its global turnover over the last 20 years. She therefore needs resolute support to respond to the various pressures she is facing. Supporting chemistry also means supporting 90% of the industrial value chain, which underpins our European competitiveness. This is what is at stake! It should also be noted that this sector represents 1.2 million direct jobs in Europe. However, like other sectors, chemistry faces high energy prices, low demand, unfair competition, often from Asia, but also regulatory complexity, the costs of decarbonisation – which we chose to steer during the last mandate – and the financial pressure of ending free carbon allowances. The plan that the Commission, through Commissioner Roswall and myself, is proposing is to keep our steam crackers and production sites in Europe, to make them cleaner and also to use decarbonisation as a lever to modernise our industry and production apparatus in Europe. The plan is based on four pillars: support for the European productive apparatus and innovation; lower energy prices and supporting industry in its decarbonisation; demand support; simplification. With the creation of an Alliance for Critical Chemicals, we will focus on actions towards the most strategic molecules and sites, which could put us at risk of addiction. For example, we are 80% dependent on methanol, a compound found in some cleaning products and cosmetics. Acetic acid, on the other hand, found in ethylene, is also part of our strategy. We will issue a roadmap on the identification and mapping of these strategic molecules, to allow, in the vein of what we did with critical raw materials, to choose which molecules Europe needs to be able to supply its industry. Then, we will accompany the creation of essential chemical sites. These industrial ecosystems, often already rooted in our territories, will be established where industrial bases, skills, know-how and infrastructure are located. We will have to modernise these bases with local forces – industries, start-ups, researchers and local public authorities – and we will also attract new elements of innovation, employment and funding, including with European and regional funds, which we also propose to be able to mobilise. Internationally, the Alliance will also allow us to further develop new markets for European chemistry. It must also help us to protect the internal market for chemicals from unfair competition from foreign producers. Since 2024, the Commission has launched more than 18 investigations into imports of chemicals under trade defence instruments. It is also proof that the strategy that was positioned in the Clean Industry Pact on the more frequent use of our trade instruments is currently at work. The second lever of our action relates to measures to reduce energy prices, including a possible extension to certain chemical sites of the State aid scheme to compensate for the increase in energy prices. We will also ask for flexibility for the chemical sector, in particular by speeding up authorisation procedures for the modernisation of certain industrial sites and moving towards a genuine European market for the circular economy – my colleague will probably mention this in her conclusion. Third lever: In support of demand, we will introduce European content and sustainability criteria in public and private procurement. We will also open innovation hubs to enable the emergence of new players in the field of advanced chemistry. Preserving chemistry, turning it towards innovation and new markets, and building the chemistry of the future: This is the strategy we propose to you. Finally, we will need to simplify our rules while maintaining a high level of consumer and environmental protection. This could lead to an anticipated saving of €400 million per year for the sector, or almost €1 million per day. We also propose to revise the regulation of the European Chemicals Agency in order to meet financial, but also governance and speed challenges, through the modernisation and simplification of the REACH Regulation. In conclusion, I would like to say a word about perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – PFAS. We expect scientific results from the European Chemicals Agency, and, as I often say, we rely on science and only science to be able to make decisions. However, we must move quickly and give visibility to the industrial sector and consumers. Some applications of PFAS are essential, and it may be difficult to do without them completely. So as long as there is no alternative, our manufacturers will have no choice but to continue using them, especially in key sectors such as defence and clean industries. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the four pillars on which the measures adopted today, a few moments ago, at the College of Commissioners are based. Commissioner Roswall and I are now happy to listen to your initial reactions and work with you on the implementation of this plan.

Mr President, I thank the speakers and Parliament for this debate on the Clean Industry Pact, which goes far beyond, as we have understood, a simple policy on decarbonisation, and which is a vision of what we want to do with our European industries in the next thirty or forty years. What are the historical industries that we want to safeguard for questions of sovereignty, also for questions of economic strategy, and employment issues at the social level? What are the strategies of tomorrow to bring out new sectors, new growth markets? The organisation of all this requires – the message has been well understood – speed and flexibility, especially at a time when the ongoing trade negotiations raise a number of concerns in private markets. It also requires reactivity, which is not simple, to be able to cope with transatlantic difficulties and mood movements that sometimes escape us in communication and in the media. I would perhaps like to conclude this debate by saying that, yes, the Commission will show flexibility, because the granting of permits, the exemption for emissions in the construction phases will undoubtedly be done in accordance with the environmental clauses and standards that we set during the last mandate, but also with the flexibility necessary to be able to achieve our objectives. We will of course also, in the social dimension - you have been a number of people talking about this - contain the impact on the changes and the acceleration of these changes via the new industries that we will experience. On skills in particular, we are counting on the updating of the Skills Union Strategy and we are therefore also counting on the European Parliament. On the changes as well, we plan to rely on the European Social Fund and the Just Transition Fund, and this is also the spirit of the Clean Industry Pact: both to look at all the economic components of competitiveness and the social and societal impact of our industrial and technological transformation. As you will have understood, the Clean Industry Pact makes competitiveness an imperative, yes, but that is not the goal in itself. Our goal is European prosperity, and this dimension must also be taken into account in our industrial policy. I would like to thank Parliament once again for these debates and in particular the ITRE Committee for all its work. You will have to analyse and debate in the coming months a number of texts that will come to the co-legislators, texts that are very important for the future of Europe, the industrial future. In any case, you will always have, in my person and on behalf of the Commission, the necessary support to maintain this ambition and accelerate the momentum.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, rapporteur, for the time and, of course, we share and I share, personally, as you know, the urgency of the situation and our ability to deliver more and more quickly, in a world that is changing and that also imposes on us a form of agility and flexibility that was not the case until a few months ago. You therefore raise the essential issue of the implementation of the Clean Industry Pact in this oral question. I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome and thank all the Members of the ITRE Committee, the rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs who have also contributed to this text, in particular you, Mr rapporteur, and I do not detract from what you said and the introduction you made. Since the beginning of this mandate – just over six months now – the European Commission has been working hard to revitalise European industry. European industry has become the top priority in the ambitions and responsiveness of this new Commission. We are therefore launching a first implementation package of the Pact, notably on State aid (CISAF), which will be presented by the European Commission as early as next week, and will be accompanied in particular by a communication published on the same day, covering both energy, taxation and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). I am also pleased that a trilogue agreement was reached today on the simplification of the CBAM, for which Parliament supported the Commission's proposal. This need to act quickly, perhaps we owe it first, and I will begin with this, to our industry, because we have changed worlds, as I said in the introduction, and we must meet a twofold objective: firstly, to strengthen our internal market and competitiveness, but also to ensure the coherence of our action in terms of economic security and diversification. The Clean Industry Pact is the first ever European industrial strategy. Here I would like to recall a few fundamentals: the method, the strategic dialogue, the sectoral plans on which the Commission has committed itself to publish texts and on which we will speed up the elements that require, in particular, decisions by the co-legislators, European preference, demand stimulation, the protection of our industries - as you recalled, Mr rapporteur - and funding. On this financial aspect, I would also like to remind you in the introduction that the Competitiveness Fund will also give us a new architecture within the framework of the new budget, more legible, more strategic, and to which we will also be able to endorse many measures for which we need, in terms of steering European industrial policy, to have both flexibility and a capacity to react. This new approach requires a steady pace and agility to deliver results and this is why the Commission will launch pilot auctions on decarbonisation and heat products in industrial processes at the end of this year. It will have an existing budget of €1 billion under the Innovation Fund and can be accompanied by national contributions through the auction-as-a-service mechanism. Beyond the question of financing, there are obviously those of investment and investment conditions, because for the decarbonised industrial future to be in Europe, we must be pioneers in the lead markets and have the reflex of resilience and "made in Europe". We will continue the momentum with three new instruments: the future regulation to accelerate industrial decarbonisation, the revised public procurement framework, on which I have been asked many times, both in committee and in this Chamber, and the future regulation on the circular economy, which is also expected and which is a market in itself for many companies. To be coherent, it will also be necessary to respond to external challenges. Economic security is more than ever at the centre of European industrial policy and concerns. We currently have more than 200 trade defence measures. They affect, for example, batteries, electric vehicles or wind turbines. And we can boast promising results with a practical basis and deployment that achieves up to 90% of the targets on these schemes that are already foreseen by the Commission. However, as you said, we must continue our efforts, and I am sure that the momentum generated by the Clean Industry Pact will help us to do so. In any case, be sure, ladies and gentlemen, that the European Commission, for its part, is committed to maintaining its ambitions and increasing the tempo, given the urgency of the situation.

Mr President, first of all, I would like to go back to the context. Few interventions mentioned the context, but it is important in this strategy. The European internal market has become a safe haven for European companies in the event of market closures. It is important because we must prepare for a market closure on the other side of the Atlantic and reduce our dependence on China. These two axes are also perfectly in line with our strategy, which targets mid-cap companies, i.e. midcaps, which are at the heart of the objective that we have collectively set ourselves, companies that are able to Europeanise in the internal market. The internal market strategy is therefore perfectly consistent with the simplification package proposed to you today and presented to the College of Commissioners this morning. Secondly, there is a change of method. The horizontal method which has been used in the Commission for some 15 years now – and which was adopted by almost all my predecessors for the internal market strategy – has borne fruit for years. However, we can clearly see, in the particular moment we are living in, that there are still specific barriers, sector by sector, profession by profession. This horizontal strategy is therefore no longer effective enough on a daily basis and does not allow us, together with the Member States, to remove a number of barriers. This is why the internal market strategy is changing and opting for a sector-by-sector and business-by-business approach. We have also proposed the appointment of one sherpa per Member State in order to be able, precisely, to elevate this discussion to the level of the Member States and to the political level and no longer to have only administrative and technical discussions on the question of the remaining barriers. We have also changed our strategy regarding our ability to move forward on the recognition of qualifications. From now on, we will not wait for an agreement at 27 to be able to move forward; the coalition of volunteers will be able to propose a mutual recognition agreement between a few Member States in order to be able to take all the others. It is a healthy pressure, an incentive for some, but at least a different method of moving forward in a different way, at a time when barriers are still blocking and when, in the current economic context, we have to use the market of 450 million consumers. This is the best way to gain growth points and organise our European economy. Thirdly, we keep in mind all the components of the internal market: goods, services, the necessary simplification (that of the savings and capital union, digitalization, digitization), with perhaps two red threads, if I were to summarize our strategy: firstly, the economic impact, the social impact, the territorial impact, and the necessary simplification, which is the common thread of the European Commission's policy on the competitiveness of our sectors. We have made an ambitious proposal, which today needs to be implemented as quickly as possible, both by this new method that we are proposing, but also in the texts that you will have to analyse, vote on and amend here in the coming months. You know the Commission's position: we are all committed to unlocking the full potential of the Single Market. As you have understood, a collective effort is needed with the Member States and with the European Parliament. So let us take the plunge, that of the internal market on all the components that I have just mentioned. In any case, the Commission will play its full part and I am sure that Parliament will play its part with the same commitment.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I had the opportunity at the last plenary session in Strasbourg to hear your proposals and expectations on the single market. It is therefore an honour to come back to you today to present the recommendations and the Single Market Strategy put forward by the College of Commissioners in recent weeks, which it has just adopted. I wanted to thank parliamentarians for their contribution of two weeks ago, which was used to feed into the debates and to co-construct the text that I will present to you. In times of economic uncertainty and trade tension, the single market must be our strength. This is the conviction of the European Commission and I say to entrepreneurs: Choosing Europe also means accessing 450 million consumers, the collective strength of the world's most skilled workers, and a GDP of EUR 18 trillion. This formidable market, however, we must energize it, make it stronger. This is what we propose in this strategy. First, we tackle the ten most damaging obstacles, the "terrible ten" in English. Gone are the major declarations of intent: Here, we are getting into the heart of the matter and into what companies, but also consumers and workers, are denouncing. We have also heard criticism of the complexity of our law. In response, the Commission launched an unprecedented 'simplification shock'. A dedicated omnibus package will also reduce red tape – I will say a few words in conclusion. We will also improve the legislative framework for the market in goods and services, an idea which you also expressed during the debates on the internal market. We intend to take advantage, for all businesses, of all the priorities that we have formulated in this strategy for goods and services, but also for the financial dimension, which is at the heart of the financing of our economy. First, when it comes to the goods market, we will allow repaired products to have a second life in the single market. We will also create a single market for waste, thanks to the future circular economy law. We will also tackle the fragmentation of packaging and labelling rules through more harmonised and modern solutions. Beyond these efforts, it is equally crucial to strengthen the internal market in the face of abuses from outside, in particular by improving the coordination of our market surveillance authorities and by giving ourselves the means to accelerate on the issue of standards where necessary, because, in the international race for technologies, the issue of standardisation is crucial for our future, for our ability to assert our industrial know-how. As I said during the presentation of this text to the College, standardisation is a fundamental issue. Therefore, the Commission proposes to recover its direct competence, both to strongly encourage standardisation bodies to take more resolute and rapid action, but also to use it, if necessary, from an economic or even European competitiveness perspective. Secondly, with regard to the services market, we also propose a new approach. We are targeting specific sectors that can bring significant added value to the European economy and contribute in particular to the twin digital and environmental transitions. The Construction Services Act will improve access to the cross-border market, the European Delivery Act will modernise the rules in the postal and parcel sector and we will facilitate repair services. We will take action for the energy, telecommunications, transport and financial services sectors, as I mentioned earlier, and we will facilitate the temporary provision of cross-border services where the provider is already certified in a Member State. Together with my colleague Roxana Mînzatu, we will also seek to reconcile mobility and safety on a subject such as the posting of workers, which is a very politically sensitive subject, on which we have made good progress and on which we will have to make further progress, perhaps by adopting new perspectives on this balance between mobility and safety of workers. In terms of qualifications, we will extend automatic recognition to more professions. We will also change the method for the recognition of qualifications. This will require moving forward with a group of voluntary countries and then extending the momentum on this issue to all Member States. It may be recalled that, out of 5,700 regulated professions, only seven currently practise recognition of qualifications at the level of the 27. These figures show us the considerable work that remains to be done on this subject. Finally, with regard to SMEs, while the single market should be the framework for the growth of our SMEs, start-ups and small businesses – which are most affected by the fragmentation of our market due to their limited resources – they are often discouraged by export barriers to other Member States. For example, the Single Market Strategy includes a new online tool that makes it easier for SMEs to identify their status. This recognition will enable them, in particular, to benefit from the specific measures intended for them in all the Member States. We will also introduce a new definition of small mid-caps and, in particular, open up certain advantages granted today to SMEs for this category of companies, which have a growth perspective within the internal market and which, at the same time, support territories and an entire business ecosystem, often far from capitals, in rural areas and cities that are often in economic difficulty. Beyond the actions announced by the Commission, the success of this Single Market Strategy will be measured by its implementation, and therefore by the involvement of the Member States, which must play the game by respecting European law, without overtransposing it. The Commission will also ensure that any non-transposition and infringements we may find are punished. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that, and I know I can count on you, on the European Parliament, to make progress on these issues. In this context, the Council and Parliament are probably the best allies of the internal market.

Mr President, Mr Sieper, I am sorry, I will speak French, but I believe you have the translation. Perhaps I will give you a few convictions as a result of this debate. First of all, one conviction is that we cannot look at our internal market strategy in silos, as has probably been the case a great deal in recent mandates. Given the current international context, a new economic balance needs to be found. It is a question both of working towards a more internal market and therefore, I repeat, of going further with regard to goods and services or the Capital Markets Union, of organising and facilitating the movement of goods and services more widely, of removing the barriers which, in particular, constrain the movement of goods and goods, within the framework of our work and the competences of the European Union. It is also a question of working, at national level, on the differences in regulations that create constraints and - I think one of you has quite rightly explained this - on the equivalent in customs duties of the various national regulations, since it is topical to speak in terms of equivalent in customs duties and this shows that it is urgent that we act. 40-50% tariffs on goods, more than 100% on services: I see the cost to one company of producing in one European country and marketing in another. The paradox of the situation is that it is probably more profitable today to produce in China and export a small package to European countries than to put in place all the European regulations to market from France, Germany, Poland or Italy. That is what we need to address in the coming months. At the same time, we must protect the external trade borders of the European Union and therefore make progress on customs reform. It is now blocked in the Council and the Member States must move forward, as I said in the introduction to this debate. I will devote a great deal of political capital to ensuring that customs reform can progress at the same pace as our reform and strategy in the internal market. On the one hand, liberalisation and breaking down the remaining barriers in the internal market, on the other, protecting European borders with regard to e-commerce, in particular by moving forward on the issue of control. I think that's the right balance that we need to be able to find collectively in this house. Another balance – the last one, I will leave it to that – that we will also be working on in the coming months and weeks concerns the new trade agreements and the diversification that we need to make while the world is increasingly protectionist. Yes, agreements with new countries, covering specific sectors, must be found. The President of the Commission is working with my colleague Maroš Šefčovič to find new opportunities for our industries and businesses outside the European Union, provided that we can operate a European preference and therefore choose "made in Europe" in a number of strategic sectors. To sum up, here is, in a way, our new balance, which we must be able to find among ourselves, collectively: both the deepening of the internal market, the protection of external borders in relation to e-commerce, to protect our market, and the diversification of trade agreements, at a time when trade is becoming increasingly complicated and the tariff war and the customs war between China and the United States can have a significant impact on our economy, in return for a European preference over a number of public purchases. In this context, you will have to work on the public procurement reform that the Commission will present in the coming months. I thank Parliament, especially President Cavazzini, for this discussion and, once again, I will be back with you to present the Commission's Internal Market Strategy very formally on 21 May in Brussels.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I obviously thank the European Parliament for this debate, and I thank you in particular, Madam President Cavazzini, because your oral question covers all the major issues relating to the internal market. It also reaffirms its essential role for Europe's prosperity. This is also the ambition of the Single Market Strategy, which the Commission will present in exactly two weeks' time. A draft of this strategy has, as you know, already leaked in the press. I will therefore say a few words before giving a very concrete answer to all the questions put by the rapporteur. Let us return to the context together, first of all, since, after the excellent reports, which were unanimously welcomed, by Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, geopolitical tensions and fragmentation remind us that the internal market is our main asset and that the best partners for Europeans are the Europeans themselves. Faced with the urgency of tapping better into this formidable economic space, I therefore propose a method and a number of compromises that we must collectively find together. First, the method of tackling the most costly and concrete barriers to our internal market. Then compromises, which must also be made, between the Member States, with the Member States, but also between the political groups. It is also a question of having fewer internal barriers against more protection outside. You spoke eminently of foreign trade and e-commerce, which is probably the cause, at this very moment, of a number of deregulations of our internal market. Protect yourself more from the outside, but in a spirit of openness to new business partnerships, while adopting a doctrine of European preference, "made in Europe", for certain strategic sectors. I will be delighted to come back to this House at the mini-plenary in May to present the internal market strategy very formally. I will now return to the questions you asked in your resolution. As you know, efforts to strengthen our internal market must be shared by all actors in the European Union. In the Commission, my colleagues and I have counted and know that we can count on the European Parliament's commitment to this issue. Of course, the Member States are central players and, I say quite bluntly, all too often the letter and spirit of the rules adopted at European level are lost at national level, often because of a sub-transposition, sometimes over-transposition, sometimes even a total lack of transposition. A few words about goods and services in general. Free movement is effective for goods. Nevertheless, as you have rightly pointed out, Madam Rapporteur, we must face the emergence of new problems, particularly in terms of compliance, sustainability and also transparency towards consumers. As far as compliance is concerned, I am thinking, for example, of the explosion of e-commerce, as I mentioned in the introduction. It requires from us strong customs, homogenized controls throughout Europe. This is not yet the case today and I would really like to thank the European Parliament for its ambitious proposal on the subject. The ball is now in the hands of the Member States when it comes to customs reform and we will also carry that momentum. The rise of e-commerce also requires more harmonised and efficient market surveillance mechanisms. In terms of sustainability, an internal market for the circular economy is needed to implement the right to re-use and repair. We will also work with you. As far as transparency is concerned, I am obviously thinking of 'shrinkflation', a phenomenon on which you have asked the Commission, but also of 'skimpflation'. The first is to reduce the quantity at constant prices and the second is to reduce the level of service without reducing the price. These are new mottos that point to a growing lack of transparency for consumers, which the European Parliament and the institutions need to address. Regulatory safeguards already exist at EU level to better protect consumers and Member States need to put in place the provisions we proposed – and put them fully in place. In any case, the Commission will continue to support Member States through dedicated cooperation networks, and we will also ensure that these issues are at the heart of the consumer agenda for 2025-2030, under the responsibility of Commissioner McGrath. Then, Mr President, after goods, a few words about services. Here too, you are challenging the Commission on the continuing risks of fragmentation of our market. It is true that the current situation is far from satisfactory. Nearly two-thirds of the barriers that exist today are the barriers that existed 20 years ago and still persist today. In particular, access to nearly 5 700 regulated services is still severely hampered at Member State level, while the heterogeneity of schemes for posted workers or seasonal workers further complicates cross-border services and investments. We need to fix this once and for all. That is why we will propose concrete solutions to facilitate the recruitment of workers and the recognition of skills and qualifications in regulated professions. They will be part of the Commission's initiative on skills portability, which will be published at the end of next year. We will also favour a sectoral approach in services to be more effective. Your oral question also referred to consumer protection, in particular with regard to digital uses. I talked about the explosion of e-commerce, but, as you know, we also voted, during the last term of office, the Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Union has a unique tool in the world that empowers platforms. We also have a Digital Markets Act (DMA), which allows as many players as possible, regardless of their size or status, to enter the market, which was previously blocked by so-called 'gate keepers'. The implementation of the DSA and DMA is just beginning, but we continue and will continue to pursue exactly the same ambition for these two texts as in the previous mandate. They will be implemented by the different directorates of the Commission and under the supervision of Henna Virkkunen, who is responsible for these issues. Madam Rapporteur, Mr President, I would like to end with a word, as I also mentioned it in the introduction: When we present the Single Market Strategy, which will feature prominently in our debates towards the end of the year, it will be an opportunity for us to also give a place to the issue of simplification. That is why, on 21 May, we will present the fourth omnibus simplification package. Its objective is quite clear: For us, it is about unlocking the potential of all the companies that make, organise and operate the Single Market. We are working on two issues in particular: the definition of small mid-caps, which is highly anticipated by parliamentarians, and the digitalisation of administrative procedures and compliance for products entering the market. I know I can count on the constructive approach of the European Parliament to move this matter forward quickly. I welcome this opportunity to gather your suggestions and priorities during this debate.

Madam President, I will be brief, as in the last debate I concluded at length and exceeded my speaking time. Let's start with some lessons to be learned from the period we have just experienced on the geopolitical level, especially regarding the energy implications. With regard to Russian gas – since the question is still why we had an inflationary energy price crisis – the Commission’s objective today is indeed to avoid any dependence or new dependence, and this also concerns critical raw materials. We intend to guard against risks to our supplies of critical raw materials in a number of strategic sectors, including in the steel sector, with the strengthening of the safeguard clause now. This is a matter of urgency, and the Commission is responding to it. We have taken into account all the lessons learned during this period, with the risks of dependency and the increased risks stemming from the current geopolitical situation and the diplomatic tensions that are emerging around the world today. Supplies that are now secure may become less secure. It is therefore our responsibility to be able, together with the Commission, to deal with this subject. We have done so with 17 critical raw materials and we will continue to do so across all sectors. It is our responsibility to plan the supply of these raw materials for our manufacturers. Secondly, the price of energy. There is a short-term strategy, a medium-term strategy and a long-term strategy. The short term, as I mentioned in my introduction: these are short-term and priority contracts, the famous power purchase contracts, which make it possible to conclude an agreement between the energy producer and the consumer with a stabilised price, public guarantees from the EIB – and which can act as counter-guarantees to ensure the sustainability of all these contracts – but also energy production, since the European strategy is in production. Whatever the national energy mix, there will be a need to invest in networks, including cross-border ones. To this end, we have decompartmentalised, in particular, the Cohesion Fund, which will make it possible, in the coming months and years, to invest in decarbonisation, but also in energy infrastructure, with the aim of multiplying our cross-border interactions as well as improving and modernising networks, thereby lowering energy prices. The granting of permits is also an important point. The Commission will work on this by making it possible to shorten the deadlines for the installation of projects – in particular decarbonisation projects. It is well known that clean technologies must somehow connect to energy-intensive industries in order to be able to respond to energy supply. Finally – and I will conclude on this – the protection of our sectors, with trade instruments. I would first like to say to Mrme Grapini that other sectors will follow, since the European Commission has started a policy dialogue on the chemical industry, which is one of the sectors concerned by this debate, with obligations for us to modernise our infrastructure – 40% of our steam crackers are over 40 years old. Today, we need to be able to modernise our infrastructure and make it more efficient in terms of international competition and competitiveness in Europe. Regarding the impact assessment, of the 47 projects proposed by the European Commission, 10 relate to recycling. Raw material recycling targets are a priority for the Commission. We estimate that, by 2030, more than 25% of the 17 critical and strategic raw materials we have listed can be recycled at European level. This is a first step. Today, we are not there at all, since some of our raw materials go to Asia for recycling, from where it comes back to us repackaged. This is the paradox of this situation. That is it, Madam President, in the hope that it has not been too long and that it has remained within the allotted time. I welcome the discussions we can have with the European Parliament, as a number of laws will follow on the implementation of this pact and the practical responses we can provide to our European industry.

Madam President, on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to thank Parliament, and in particular the ITRE Committee, for putting the topic of energy-intensive industries on the agenda of this session. This debate allows us to continue the discussion we had on the Steel and Metals Action Plan, published on 19 March. This shows how much the European Union recognises both the economic weight and the strategic nature of energy-intensive industries! Strategic because they are often at the base of the entire value chain and are therefore at the centre of our innovation. It must also be recognized that these industries are moving along a ridge line. While they represent nearly 8 million jobs in Europe and around EUR 500 billion in added value, they are also responsible for 19% of greenhouse gas emissions, hence our strategy and ambition to support them in decarbonisation. It is our duty to support the decarbonisation of all these industries, but also their competitiveness, as I mentioned at the end of the previous debate, in order to give them the capacity to draw up a development plan and to leave them room for manoeuvre that will allow them to make new investments in this area. We are well aware of the difficulties they face. This includes – and we will probably discuss this very broadly – the price of energy, which is much higher in our country than in our competitors. This is also demand, which is idling. In the previous debate, I mentioned a number of avenues on our ability to carry out reforms, including on clauses in public procurement. Finally, these are the overcapacities that have exploded, are boosted by subsidies and are pouring into the European market. It is therefore urgent for Europe to contain and reverse the trend. To achieve this, we presented the Clean Industry Pact. We had the opportunity to discuss it here in this Chamber last month: it is a roadmap that provides a trajectory with a decarbonisation target. To put it simply, we are staying the course, which is also an economic strategy for us, but we are somehow changing the method, speeding up or allowing some flexibility when necessary. This pact was conceived as a cross-cutting framework. It is monitored and complemented by sectoral action plans: steel and metals, and soon the chemical industry – a very important industry in Europe, as we see it as a mattress for all other industries. It is often referred to as the ‘industry of industries’. The Commission has therefore proposed ambitious schemes, with energy-intensive industries at the centre. The first priority is access to clean and affordable energy. We will come back to this during the debate, but direct sales contracts – power purchase agreements (PPAs) – and contracts for difference are very relevant levers. We will generalize them. They have been put forward as part of the electricity market reform, and the Commission will do its utmost to support their implementation in Member States and with willing partners. I would add that the Commission, with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB), will launch a pilot programme of counter-guarantees, the aim of which is to better share the risks in direct sales contracts, and thus to promote their widespread use by industrialists and energy producers. At the same time, action is needed with all other sectors and all other components of electricity prices, including grid costs, taxes and levies. This represents a certain effort for the Commission, since it is also a matter of working closely with the Member States and aligning all European policy with good practices, which we can replicate in all Member States. Governance is difficult, and the Commission needs significant political capital to align all countries on this path. This is the Commission's mission: decarbonisation projects and decarbonised products. Legislation should follow, but first we need to streamline permit-granting procedures for decarbonisation projects. We will also support the dynamics driven by directives from the last Commission: Renewable Energy Directive, Critical Raw Materials Act – which you voted in the last legislature – and Net-Zero Industry Act. We will then support the demand for low-carbon and Made in Europe products. I also mentioned it at the end of the previous debate. As for the financial aspect, which is very important, we obviously agreed on a set of measures to be based on serious and ambitious financial aspects for all these industries. We first agreed on a mid-term review of the cohesion funds, the aim of which will be, inter alia, to better contribute to decarbonisation: we will broaden the spectrum of these cohesion funds, and I have been very insistent that energy-intensive industries be taken into account in this reprogramming, which the College of Commissioners announced yesterday. Another tool is the €100 billion decarbonisation bank announced in the Clean Industry Pact. I will end with three quick topics: access to raw materials, the issue of recycling and sustainability, and the conditions under which we can extract raw materials in Europe. We will propose legislation on the circular economy that will push the use of recycled raw materials even further, including considering the internal market to the benefit of the European recycling industry. It is about creating both supply and demand. These are challenges for us, since the Critical Raw Materials Regulation that you voted for implies that the recycling of the 17 identified critical and strategic raw materials exceeds 25%. These measures will also complement ongoing efforts on trade defence instruments, with anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and anti-circumvention measures, and we will preserve quality jobs and skills, which will be at the heart of our strategy. That is it, ladies and gentlemen – I have exceeded my time, Madam President, but I would like to say that this debate must also shed light on our future strategy and more generally on energy-intensive industries. Our ability to lower energy prices is perhaps the only competitiveness criterion we need to be able to play on today, especially in a period of international instability and complex geopolitical movements for our industries.

Madam President, first of all, I note a form of unanimity and an invitation to swift implementation. This is good, it is also the ambition of the Commission: Go fast. The international geopolitical context, on this particular day that President Trump has chosen to call Liberation Day, also calls for urgency. There is a sense of urgency, but it is not just a feeling: for the steel and metals sector, this was the last call for a concrete, organised, structured plan covering all the parameters of competitiveness, from securing the sector – with our trade defence instruments – to the ability for us to provide a long-term development plan for this industry. I would like to come back to a number of points: first, on metal waste and scrap. As I said, exports have doubled in recent years. We are therefore working on export restrictions, if necessary, in the coming weeks or months. In any case, we have important challenges around this dimension, which concern our production capacity not only for steel, but also for other types of metals requiring metal waste, and therefore scrap, in order to be able to be produced under normal competitive conditions in Europe. As far as low-carbon steel is concerned, I am counting on the European Parliament to look into the review of public procurement that we will launch in the coming weeks. Another important issue concerns our definition of low-carbon steel. We will be able to include this definition in public procurement clauses, which will allow contracting authorities – municipalities, regions, states – to include quantities of European steel in public procurement. I would remind Members here that public procurement accounts for 14% of European GDP. Changing these criteria can therefore clearly create the demand needed to fill the order books of our steel mills, and this is a matter of political will. I am of course counting on the European Parliament to support the Commission in this process. I also want to reassure the left and The Left: there is no planned trade agreement in the area of steel, in particular as regards quotas. The opposite is true. Since 1 April – so yesterday – we have restricted the safeguard clause. We have made it more rigid, with the result that steel imports into Europe will be reduced by around 15% in the coming months. We protect the steel sector, we organise the development plan so that we can find business opportunities, but also ways to safeguard our industry and our production capacity. In the steel industry, 80% of European production and needs occur on European soil. Our intention is to preserve our industry to keep that 80% operational and protect us from possible geopolitical and trade tensions in the years to come. I also take this opportunity to assume our strategy on critical raw materials. We need to protect ourselves from the risks. We are 100% dependent on China, and I really prefer that mining takes place in Europe rather than in Africa, under complicated environmental and social conditions. I always find it particular, coming from the left, that we prefer to import raw materials produced under catastrophic social and environmental conditions rather than try to repatriate production to Europe, and thus encourage Member States to reopen farms. I take this opportunity to express my condolences for the miners killed in Asturias. It is a sector where it is always dangerous to work, but social conditions have changed a lot in Europe. We have to work on that. But I also assume our production capacity in Spain and Europe, in that dimension. On the issue of competitiveness – this time I turn to the right and I will finish there, Madam President – it is important to say that the conditions for competitiveness vis-à-vis China are not linked to the Green Deal. They are linked to different working conditions, different wages, different subsidy conditions, but the difference in competitiveness that exists between us and China in the steel sector has no link with the Green Deal. We must not talk about anything. We will work on the factors of competitiveness for our industry and we will embark on this path with the support of Parliament. In any case, the legislative agenda is ambitious and dense. He is waiting for us here in Parliament with all the political groups. I will of course work closely with Parliament, and I thank you for this debate, which enlightens all our fellow citizens on the Commission’s ambitions in this area.

Madam President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to inaugurate this new method with you, and I do not need to recall here how the steel and metal industry is at the heart of the European project: Beyond the aspirations for peace and shared prosperity, the European project started with the steel industry. On this particular day, which Donald Trump called Liberation Day, the economic and geopolitical context once again gives us the opportunity to appreciate the importance of steel and metals in our industrial fabric, not only for our prosperity, but also for our collective security. As you know, the European Commission presented a clean industry pact at the end of February, with a clear slogan: reconciling competitiveness and decarbonisation, as these are the conditions for European prosperity. The Clean Industry Pact proposes a cross-cutting approach, which fully integrates the challenges of the steel and metals industry. On energy, for example, its cost represents 17% of production costs in the steel sector and up to 40% in the aluminium sector. These figures are clearly problematic for our competitiveness, given the price of energy in Europe. In addition, there is unbridled or even distorted competition from third countries, such as China and other Asian or Middle Eastern countries. We are reaching unprecedented levels of global overcapacity. For steel, for example, this represents more than four and a half times the annual consumption of the European Union. All these challenges require targeted and ambitious support measures from the European Union. In the wake of the momentum generated by the Pact, the Commission therefore presented an action plan for steel and metals two weeks ago, which was based in particular on consultations with stakeholders in the industry concerned, in particular during the strategic dialogue launched at the beginning of March with the social partners and the industries concerned. This new method has also been replicated in all the sectors on which we have acted, by proposing sectoral plans. Our objective is therefore twofold: on the one hand, in the short term, to act on competitiveness factors, and on the other hand, in the long term, to send a signal to trigger the investments needed for decarbonisation, with the aim of modernising our productive apparatus as part of this plan. One of the projects that the plan is working on is, of course, the energy project. We want to provide a quick response to price volatility and grid access difficulties, using power purchase agreements, reducing grid tariffs in Member States and being flexible on energy taxes. A second important point that the plan addresses is the reform to improve the effectiveness of the carbon border adjustment mechanism. Later this year, the Commission will publish a communication on exports to third countries. This will be followed by a legislative proposal to extend the scope of the mechanism and introduce additional anti-circumvention measures. Our action plan also aims to safeguard our European production capacities. We have strengthened the current safeguard clause for steel and, by the autumn, the Commission will come forward with a new proposal that will take over from 2026 and put in place an ever more ambitious scheme, including for aluminium, if necessary when the time comes. Finally, a few words on circularity: The Commission is taking the matter head-on. In particular, we plan to introduce targets for recycled steel and aluminium. In addition, trade measures concerning scrap exports – scraps – are also under consideration. These exports have more than doubled in recent years, and it is important to keep some of this scrap in Europe, which is used to make a number of industrial sites profitable and to lower the price and cost of this raw material. The European Union has taken up this issue, and we will also be there. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of the spirit and the letter of the Steel and Metals Action Plan. I know that we share the same concern for the future of the sector and I am pleased, on behalf of the Commission, that we can discuss it today.

Madam President, I would like to thank all Members for this enlightening debate, which shows that we still need to make progress towards consensus on decarbonising our economy. In fact, since the war in Ukraine and the end of the supply of low-cost Russian gas, our decarbonisation strategy has become an economic strategy, as we need to produce energy on our continent by reducing the risks associated with third countries. We must also put the necessary means to electrify as much as possible and support our companies and industries in this electrification. It is an economic issue, a competitiveness issue, but also a strategic issue for Europe. When I hear a number of speakers, there are probably three pitfalls that the Commission will not fall into. The first is to recreate new dependencies on other energies or continents, posing a risk of economic and geopolitical fragility. The second is to consider that everything needs to be nationalised and planned in order to lower the price of energy. We need a roadmap with an analysis that shows that our companies will be able to generate margins and therefore be more competitive with cheaper energy. So far, I do not know of a nationalised system that allows for economic efficiency. The third – and possibly the fourth – point I wanted to raise was the issue of international issues. I think that in a moment that is turbulent from an international point of view – Europe is in a complex situation vis-à-vis discussions and threats on European tariffs – the answer will have to be global. It is comprehensive in terms of competitiveness, and we wanted to be able to address a number of issues, such as the price of energy, which is proving to be a factor of competitiveness for all European industries. In this context, I want to rebound on some questions that have been raised about the price of energy and our ability to guarantee it in the context of PPPs. Yes, the European Investment Bank will act as guarantor for PPPs, to be able to secure and reduce the risks associated with these PPPs, which are multiplying and which are a good thing, since they remove the volatility of the price of energy and make it possible to get out of the carbon price of our electricity the contracts of this kind that have been concluded between energy producers and industrialists. This issue, in any case, will be at the heart of our priorities to give visibility, secure supply and ensure low energy prices in the period. This is an emergency measure, but one that we want to perpetuate and expand in the coming months and years. The overall answer concerns the price of energy – I mentioned it – but also the demand for decarbonised products – I also mentioned it on the issue of raw materials and our ability to produce raw materials again in Europe. Yes, at some point we will have to reopen rare materials, rare earths and raw materials mines in Europe, if we do not want to depend on partnerships, and possibly on mines that make workers work under conditions that we Europeans do not accept ourselves. These partnerships will not be concluded with countries that make a certain number of workers work in absolutely disastrous conditions. I am thinking in particular of the DRC: In view of the country’s geopolitical conditions, there were several possible partnerships with the DRC concerning various raw materials, which no longer seem to me to be possible. The way forward for Europe must be to reduce the risks associated with our raw materials, including by producing in Europe. It is like energy. We do not produce oil, we do not produce gas and we have a number of instruments to be able to be autonomous in our ability to produce energy, at this crucial moment, including for our industry: energy prices, financing, circularity and, finally, training and skills, since these sectoral plans are also done with trade unions and professional forces. We have received them, we have built the sectoral plans with them, whether on automotive, steel or chemistry, and we will continue this method of consultation and co-construction of responses, which must correspond to an economic reality. As you have understood, our aim is to accelerate decarbonisation for strategic reasons, for competitiveness reasons, but also to make Europe stronger in this complex and uncertain moment at international level. I will soon come to the European Parliament for a hearing in the ITRE, ECON, IMCO, JURI, ENVI and INTA Committees, which have invited me. We will discuss all these issues in detail, and I would also like to thank the political groups for their support. Let us avoid politicising the Green Deal. He's probably given a number of cold administrative sweats to our businesses, and we're trying to sort that out. But once again, when the subjects of our economic strategy and our climate objectives come together, I believe that this should bring together a very large part of this House.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving us the opportunity today to discuss the proposals that the European Commission published on 26 February. With this plan, we are empowering to decarbonise and reindustrialise at the same time – more than €100 billion in all. Indeed, decarbonising our industry is not just an environmental issue; it is also a growth strategy and a security imperative for us Europeans. This is the focus of my work with Teresa Ribera and Wopke Hoekstra; it is a strong commitment and industrial production made in Europe, sustainable and competitive. Ladies and gentlemen, we know that expectations are very high on this subject. They have spoken during all the industrial visits I have been able to make since the beginning of this mandate, including with you, sometimes. In a nutshell, it may be necessary to synthesize things as follows: We have to produce more and we have to produce better. To produce better means to produce decarbonised and European. This pact is, in a way, the roadmap for Europe's low-carbon industry. It is based on four main lines: demand, costs, financing and inputs. The Application, first. Companies and their employees all tell us: we have made efforts to decarbonise our industries and businesses, but there is not enough demand for clean steel or clean cement. The priority is therefore to boost the low-carbon market in Europe. This requires stimulating demand. This pact proposes to completely rethink the logic of public procurement, which has so far too often been based solely on the criterion of price. We will introduce new criteria for sustainability, resilience, performance and European preference in public procurement, and more generally in public support. I know that the Committee on the Internal Market and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are already working on this project. In this context, we will have the opportunity to review with you all the objectives and share all of Parliament’s priorities and prerogatives on this review of public procurement. The second line is costs. Our industrial sites face the same problems, namely excessively high energy prices. These are competitiveness criteria that bring together all the problems we face in industry. As the electricity market is now too volatile, which contributes to higher bills, it is necessary to allow the most energy-consuming sites to escape from this volatility. Together with Teresa Ribera and Dan Jørgensen, we therefore propose to strengthen long-term energy purchase agreements. This should increase clean energy production in Europe, decouple electricity and gas prices, and promote energy security in Europe. The third point is funding. The idea is simple: we support financially the industrial sectors that play the game. Their decarbonisation is a central objective of our policy, with the European institutions on the one hand, but also the Member States, public authorities and private companies. For EU funds, we plan to mobilise the Innovation Fund as well as ETS revenues, but also to mobilise funds, mainly private, through InvestEU. Thanks to a good simplification measure, we propose to increase its impact by EUR 50 billion, of which EUR 25 billion can be directly mobilised for the decarbonisation of these large sites. Last line of our roadmap: inputs. We have two objectives: reduce the cost of raw materials and limit our dependencies. This starts with securing our own extractions and exploitation of raw materials and rare metals. The Commission is finalising a list of several dozen raw material projects across Europe – you are likely to have them in all countries and Member States. In addition, we will encourage in the Circular Economy Act to keep waste from our critical raw materials in Europe. I said this during the Commissioners’ hearing, but today it is not normal for Europe to export black milling – batteries in particular – and then buy it back and repackage it at a high price that can be reused in Europe. Finally, we propose, again on this topic, to create a common platform for purchasing raw materials, and therefore to decide together who we buy from, how and at what price. We need to do with lithium and cobalt what we did for vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, which brings me to my last point. Europe, far from being just a playground, is also a player, and we need to make more systematic use of our trade defence tools by strengthening the rules, especially those on foreign subsidies, of which our companies are the first victims, and by introducing new conditions for foreign investment on our soil. Ladies and gentlemen, a number of these proposals will be rolled out in various sectors and sectoral plans. We started unveiling them with the car last week; next week will be dedicated to steel, followed by chemistry, sustainable transport and the bioeconomy. In any case, you can be sure of our mobilization on this subject, which remains important, because it falls under both the economic strategy and the climate strategy.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps a few words first of all to tell you that this compass for competitiveness has not come out of nowhere. It was worked on with all the political groups at the time of the constitution of the majority in this Chamber and it is 80% of the result of the reports which you yourself voted for in this Chamber, in this debate, the Draghi and Letta reports. Therefore, if we agree with the Draghi and Letta reports, we normally agree, coherently, with the text produced by the Commission, which is about 80% copied and pasted, which we ourselves considered useful for the compass for European competitiveness. The report is balanced. It allows us to have a clear view of the economic situation in Europe, to use the instruments I mentioned in the introduction to be able to respond to them, to accelerate, to have elements of flexibility that will allow us to respond, in particular, to crises that we would not have foreseen and that we should face in the coming years. For all these reasons, I imagine that the entire representation here and parliamentarians will support the approach. Nevertheless, allow me also, Madam President, to mention some pitfalls that we must not fall into, and which I have seen in this debate. First of all, we must not think that the Green Deal is responsible for everything, including our economic situation. Moreover, it is quite funny, sometimes surprising, to see the same pro-Russian parties explain to us that the Green Deal is responsible for everything, where these same parties tended to be more dependent on Russian gas a few years ago, in the same hemicycle here. I had other responsibilities at the time, but we had that debate. We have faced a gas and gas price crisis that has created an energy price crisis, a major competitiveness problem in Europe that needs to be addressed. But if the Green Deal was perhaps a climate and environmental strategy, this issue has also become an economic strategy on the decarbonisation part of the economy, on the energy production part in Europe, on our territory, in a sovereign way, to lower the price of energy, to produce more. But this will require a strategy that also concerns networks, transport infrastructure, electricity, between European borders, in particular, to be able to balance national networks more quickly, to avoid electricity price spikes. All this is a short-term, medium-term and long-term strategy. You have it in the compass for competitiveness and we implement this strategy very pragmatically in the texts we have planned to present at the end of February and the beginning of March. Second pitfall, Madam President: objectives and means should not be confused. Often, the pitfall in which politicians fall is to make the means the objective. In this period of diplomatic tensions and economic complexity, we need flexibility and we need to change the way we achieve our goals. You have to be able to understand it, you have to be able to anticipate it. We must be able to give ourselves the capacity to do so. The compass for competitiveness, the various texts that we will have to discuss here in this Chamber, which will be legislative texts, will normally allow us to adjust the path towards the objectives that we have set ourselves. This is the whole meaning of simplification as well, that of not making the path an untouchable goal. As European politicians, we have set ourselves the goal of decarbonising our economy by 2050. As I mentioned, it is now an economic strategy as much as a climate strategy, but we must adapt the means to be able to achieve the same objectives. I believe that this is one of the messages that we have all received from the European elections and that the Commission will implement. Last but not least: the internal market. Some of you mentioned the growth prospects of a 450 million market whose barriers are still very present in many sectors. I would like to inform you this evening that the President has asked me to speed up the internal market strategy so that I can publish it very quickly and have a democratic discussion with all the co-legislators, in the Council and in the European Parliament. We will therefore accelerate this strategy so that it can also be a response to the international economic closure. We need answers too. And the internal market gives us growth prospects for our economies at a time of significant diplomatic tensions, growth that will protect our companies and, probably and above all, our European SMEs. That's it, I'll leave it at that. We could obviously talk a lot about this subject. You have understood the doctrine that the Commission has set itself for the next five years in economic terms. I hope that we will always be able to debate it, to make it evolve, since this doctrine must also have elements of flexibility that allow us precisely to adapt our economic strategy in an uncertain period. Then the texts will come to Parliament in the coming weeks and months, with a sense of urgency, a sense of flexibility and pragmatism at a time when, of course, our competitors are experiencing economic euphoria, which is not good either for the European model that we all defend here, or for our competitiveness strategy for the future. So it is up to us Europeans to play, we have all the means to succeed in this period. We just need, as I said, to speed up the predictability and flexibility of our responses. Thank you, Madam President. We will have the opportunity to have this debate, I imagine, and probably on many, many occasions in this House, and I welcome that.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Minister, on behalf of the European Commission, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the compass for competitiveness. As its name suggests, its ambition is to set a course for the European Union in these times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. More than ever, we need a shared goal and objectives, and in particular to have the elements of the path to follow to achieve these ambitions that we have set ourselves. This initiative confirms the commitment of the new Commission to: Putting competitiveness at the heart of the European agenda. It also confirms the urgent need for action. After the unprecedented crises we have experienced in recent years, Europe has done a job of introspection. It is evidenced in particular by the recent reports by Mr Draghi and Mr Letta. The diagnosis is unequivocal: Europe risks slowing down even more and must move faster today in its transformations and reforms, especially compared to our major competitors, the United States and China. The risk of economic drop-out is therefore now very real. It is also clear from this observation, which is watermarked, that the European Union is very far from exploiting its potential, I am thinking in particular of the internal market. In other words, it is far from having maximized its competitiveness potential to carry out its ambitions and assert its interests. So, ladies and gentlemen, to remedy this, the compass for competitiveness has three main priorities. The first: combining decarbonisation and competitiveness. This priority will lead, within a fortnight, to the presentation of the clean industry pact. The aim is to enable the European Union to create the right investment conditions. In short, this is about making the Green Deal competitive and enabling our companies to decarbonise and find space to trade globally with competitive products. This is one of the main objectives we have set ourselves. Part of this text will be devoted to access to affordable energy. If there is a subject and a factor of competitiveness on which we can act, it would be the question of energy, but also access to raw materials and therefore the security of our entire supply chain. It will also mean having debates, in all humility, which should allow us to reproduce and refocus and possibly reopen mines in Europe to produce raw materials as part of our supply chains. I am thinking in particular of the question of the battery. Then it is necessary to develop promising markets or access to finance. As a second step, this framework initiative will pave the way for a series of action plans. These plans will be designed as closely as possible to sectoral realities, in particular for the automobile, for steel or for chemistry. A second priority will be to close our innovation gap. This is also the spirit of the summit for artificial intelligence that has just ended in Paris. This includes building genuine European industrial leadership for these European champions in the deep tech and all sectors with high growth potential, such as biotech. We have seen this debate at the hearings of the Commissioners and we continue to believe that these industries will form and will be the industries of tomorrow that will create jobs and growth at European level. With these lessons, we will have to be able to support and target innovative start-ups that have not always had the financial levers to grow, because they face difficulties to reach the scale-up, with business successes that are uncertain, companies that will also finance themselves on the other side of the Atlantic, and we will also have to be able, more generally, to infuse the culture of innovation with European SMEs. The third priority is the reduction of our dependencies and a level playing field. Obviously, we will reduce our dependencies by consolidating our supply value chains, as I mentioned with regard to raw materials, also by strengthening all the elements of economic security that the Commission has at its disposal today. This has enabled us to implement new partnerships for clean trade and investment. We will also ensure, for the most critical technologies and sectors, that the best interests of the European Union are promoted, in particular by further promoting made in Europe in public procurement. So much for priorities. I will end, Mr President, by saying a few words about the method. Three big watchwords, if I want to summarize things quickly: simplify, invest and accelerate. Simplify: we will have this debate, because our companies must devote their energy to what they know how to do best, that is to say, to produce, to create value and to create quality jobs. Invest, then, because we will have to find possible investment levers to focus our industrial ambitions, especially on new technologies that are strategic. Finding investments means mobilising capital, it also means finding elements that will allow us to find financial products to raise European savings. Accelerate, finally, because the world is not waiting for us and we must in any case give our industrial ecosystem the means to climb into the lead, but above all to stay there in the long term.